In the quiet corridors of Hong Kong's civil service, a senior official overseeing the troubled redevelopment of Queen Mary Hospital was asked to step aside — not through the formal mechanisms designed to ensure accountability, but through an arrangement that kept the details largely out of public view. Chief project manager Li Pak-yee's departure, following faulty lift installations and costly delays at one of the city's most prominent public health projects, raises an enduring question about governance: when institutions resolve their failures privately, who bears witness to the lessons they