North District Council and Fanling District Rural Committee Chairman Li Kwok-fung has been charged for making $129,000 worth of false claims for rent reimbursements.

Former North District Councillor Tang Kun-nin, 51, has also been charged. Tang and Li, 53, have been released on bail and will appear at Fanling Magistracy tomorrow.

The alleged offences occurred between January 2000 and July 2002 when Li was a district councillor. He was elected chairman in January last year.

Li is charged with one count of fraud, which alleges he falsely represented to the district council secretariat he incurred rental expenses of $145,000, as stated in receipts purportedly issued by the rural committee. He allegedly induced the secretariat to reimburse him $129,027 between January 2000 and May 2002. However, the committee had not leased the premises to Li, nor had it received any rent from him.

Li and Tang jointly face another fraud charge, alleging they falsely represented to the secretariat that Tang had incurred rental expenses totalling $39,000 in relation to another rural committee premises, as stated in receipts purportedly issued by the committee. They are said to have induced the secretariat to reimburse Tang, then a North District Councillor, $30,000 between September 2001 and June 2002.

It is suspected that under an agreement, they were to take turns to pay the rent for the premises, which was mainly used by Tang as his ward office.

Li allegedly failed to pay the rent due to him for six months. He nevertheless allegedly assisted in issuing false rural committee rental receipts to facilitate Tang to claim reimbursements from the Government.