Treasury chief Christopher Hui on Tuesday said he hopes officials handling procurement matters will become better gatekeepers of public resources, rather than just checking boxes when they vet tender documents.

He made the comment on RTHK a day after a review concluded that officials weren't good enough with their due diligence checks over purchasing bottled water for public offices this year.

More than a dozen officials - senior and frontline - are now subject to disciplinary investigations over the matter, which saw the director of a firm supplying the water charged in August with scamming the government.

Hui stressed the vetting process isn't just about finding fault, but also one about the empowerment of officials that they ought to exercise their powers when necessary.

"We hope to build an ownership culture at work - that when officers purchase things for the government, it's as though they're buying them for themselves," the minister said.

"When officers come across a problem, they can think about it more and get to the bottom of it. We hope our colleagues can have a greater sense of suspicion, care and responsibility."

Hui said in the weeks since problems with bottled water surfaced, his task force had taken in views from frontline officials when they got together in engagement sessions.

That, he said, resulted in more specific provisions in internal guidelines that officials can use to take a step further by conducting on-site checks, instead of just vetting procurement documents.