The Internet Professional Association has denied abusing public funds, as the city's graft-buster pointed to flaws in the firm's management of a government internet-learning project, implicating a leading candidate to be the next information-technology chief.
The association, or iProA, which attracted controversy last year over alleged political interference in the awarding of the government contract, was the subject of a recent report published by the Independent Commission Against Corruption's corruption prevention department.
The report alleged that one of the groups tasked with running the internet-learning programme for poor households, eInclusion Foundation - set up by iProA - had abused public funds because of lax monitoring, the Eastweek magazine said.
The ICAC report, which gave advice on how to prevent corruption after examining the HK$220 million project's operation last year, said some iProA staff worked part-time for eInclusion, but their salaries came from public funds.
Two of those staff saw a 50 per cent pay rise, the magazine reported.
Former eInclusion director Nicholas Yang Wai-hung, executive vice-president of Polytechnic University who was in the lead to be the next information technology minister, said via a university spokesman that it was not appropriate for him to comment on the news as he had resigned all his posts at eInclusion on June 30.