The assertion by the wife of new development minister Paul Chan Mo-po that she was unaware a company on whose board both once sat owns two subdivided flats was called into question yesterday.
That's because their principal tenant, Wu Ho-yin, said he had told a director of the company that the flats were sublet to multiple tenants.
A day earlier Wu had denied the company was informed of the flats' illegal partitioning.
News of the subdivided flats has caused fresh controversy for the administration of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying.
Chan and his wife, Frieda Hui Po-ming, are both former directors of the company, Harvest Charm Development. Hui quit its board as recently as July 1. Chan resigned as a director in 1997.
The company's shareholders are two offshore companies, which also own the couple's home in Leighton Hill, Causeway Bay. It's not known who owns the offshore companies or why Hui quit Harvest Charm's board the day the new government took office.
Chan only became development minister after the previous appointee, Mak Chai-kwong, resigned two weeks into the job following his arrest by the Independent Commission of Corruption on suspicion of bribery in connection with his alleged abuse of civil service housing allowance in the 1980s.