The group running unofficial handover celebrations cancelled a quarter of its bookings at Urban Council venues.
'It is such a high cancellation rate, were they trying to occupy all the venues? It proves they couldn't hold that many functions,' Democrat Kam Nai-wai said at a Provisional Urban Council sitting yesterday where the figure was revealed.
Out of the 28 bookings made by the Association for Celebration of Reunification of Hong Kong with China on behalf of non-government organisations, eight were cancelled, one because of rain.
The chairman of the Provisional Urban Council's Recreation Select Committee, Ronnie Wong Man-chiu, agreed the cancellation rate was unusually high. 'We can send a departmental officer to talk to the association to find out the reasons,' he said.
The association's publicity officer Christine Chie denied it had wanted to book out the venues and said it was only acting as middleman for individual groups.
