A former Legislative Council assistant and Yuen Long district councillor has been sentenced to 30 months in prison after being convicted of unlawful intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. His former employer, ex-legislator Ma Fung Kwok, has defended the HK$264,000 bonus he paid the assistant at the end of the Legislative Council term.
In a social-media post, Ma said the assistant’s monthly salary was HK$51,500 in 2022, rising to HK$52,530 in 2023. After the assistant was elected to the Yuen Long District Council in 2024 and began receiving a councillor’s salary, the two agreed to reduce his legislative-assistant pay by about 30%, to HK$36,000 a month.
Ma said he raised the monthly salary to HK$44,000 in 2025 because the assistant’s workload in his office had not fallen and his work remained effective. The HK$264,000 bonus was six months’ pay at that rate, although it remained below the assistant’s earlier monthly salary of HK$52,530.
Using that earlier salary as the baseline, Ma said the assistant’s total income over the following two years was still about HK$40,000 lower, even after the bonus. He said the payment recognised length of service and performance, and did not involve additional public money because office operating costs were reimbursed against actual expenditure.
As examples of the assistant’s work, Ma cited helping to organise a mass National Day dance in Sham Shui Po and a Chinese film festival. He said the assistant had worked for him throughout the four-year seventh Legislative Council term and had volunteered for him for several years before that.
HK01 reported that 30 members who did not return to the previous Legislative Council paid about HK$9.4 million in bonuses to 157 assistants, with public funds covering the total. The outlet also reported that draft guidelines were being prepared for a possible cap of 15% of salaries on members’ total bonuses to assistants.