There were 40 police officers suffering unmanageable debts as of the first half of this year, according to the Security Bureau. It represented a slight drop compared to earlier data.
Of the 40, 27 or 67.5 per cent cited the reason for indebtedness being family-related, whilst the other reasons were gambling, important life events, overspending and business failures.
In the first and second half of 2015, there were 46 and 47 police officers who were in the red, whilst the figures in each half of previous years were over 50. There are over 20,000 police officers in Hong Kong.
In the first half of this year, ten officers were declassified as having unmanageable debts, and three were newly classified into the status.
The police officer that has the longest period of having unmanageable debts gained the status in the second half of 2005.
In a document from the Bureau to the Legislative Council’s Panel on Security, 11 notices of tax recovery were issued to police officers in the first half of 2016, with amounts totaling HK$100,678.76.
Compared to the same period last year, it represented a 87 per cent drop in amount. Last year, 48 tax recovery notices totalling HK$770,056.32 were issued.
As the Legislative Council’s term will come to an end next week, there will not be a meeting of the panel discussing the document.
