Secretary for Development Paul Chan Mo-po says he will not step down amid the scandal involving subleased flats owned by a company linked to his wife.
But his fourth attempt in a week to clarify his involvement in the affair, which followed a call from Executive Council convenor Lam Woon-kwong to seize a 'last chance' to clear up the row, left questions unanswered and fuelled more criticism.
Chan, who only took up the job late last month after his predecessor Mak Chai-kwong was arrested by graft-busters, has seen his integrity rocked - especially after he released a statement on the stroke of midnight on Sunday admitting that he knew a Tai Kok Tsui flat bought by the company in 1994 had subleases in place at the time of purchase.
He was accused of backtracking on his earlier insistence that he knew nothing about the status of the Tai Kok Tsui flat and others owned by Harvest Charm Development. He resigned as a director of the company in 1997.
Candidates in next month's Legislative Council election have demanded his head. In an attempt to win back public confidence, Chan went before the television cameras again yesterday, insisting that he did not lie and apologising for his midnight statement, which drew claims he was deliberately holding back information to make life difficult for journalists.
Chan drew a distinction between flats divided into cubicles, with shared bathrooms and kitchens, and subdivided flats, with individual bathrooms and kitchens. He said the flat in Tai Kok Tsui fell into the former category, a fact he was aware of when the company bought it.
He said he did not know whether structural alterations to the flats had been authorised. And he refuted the accusation that he had released information selectively, saying: 'I just wanted to reply as early as possible.'