I just want to make a few points about this fiasco.
This decision on the selection of this system was not that of anyone in the CAD and that includes the DGCA, the Project Team or anyone else.
The decision was made by Government. With all of the work the project Team did on the technical merit of the bidders, it only counted for 35% toward the selection process. 65% came from the cost of the bid. The company that won the bid, deliberately bid low with the idea of making their money after the successful tender by requiring more money to fix the problems which were going to occur. It also allowed them to develop their system without paying development costs. Guess what, that's exactly what happened.
One of the original bidders pulled out because there was no way they could match the successful bidder on cost.
I don't know anyone on the Project Team who would have selected the winning bid.
All of those involved on the Project Team worked extremely hard to get the sort of radar they would have liked to use themselves, however, in the end, it was not their decision. It was the Hong Kong Government's decision based on cost.
If the DGCA made any mistake, it was that of not enough resources for the task. Anyone in Project Management knows that with any project, you need a bow wave of extra people with expertise to do the job up front, including proper training and documentation as occurred with the move to Chek Lap Kok. Either he was reluctant to, or the Government would not provide those resources and instead chose to staff the Project Team from within CAD. This meant staff shortages at the coalface and we have been suffering from the result of this decision ever since.