By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-11-27 09:51:30 | Updated at 2024-11-27 12:31:12
2 hours ago
The Hong Kong government-backed Nano and Advanced Materials Institute (NAMI) has failed to meet performance targets over the past five years, falling short in areas such as income and the number of projects while its former CEO was found to have overspent on overseas trips.
NAMI was set up in 2006 to help small and medium-sized enterprises conduct research and development in nanotechnology and advanced materials.
But the Audit Commission found the institute’s contribution to the city’s economic growth was reduced by almost a third between 2019-20 and 2023-24.
The institute set an annual performance goal on the number of funded projects to start and complete, but it failed to reach both target numbers, according to the report.
In four of the past five years, the company commenced a lower than expected amount of projects, with an average shortfall of eight.
The company needed to improve in project time management, the auditor’s director noted, citing 74 per cent of the funded-projects reviewed were delayed by between seven months and 18 months.
The auditor also found the former CEO was involved in excess spending on 11 out of 30 business trips.
