The head of the University of Hong Kong said yesterday he had never told two senior aides that Tung Chee-hwa had expressed concerns over opinion polls conducted by Robert Chung Ting-yiu.
Professor Cheng Yiu-chung's comments were in sharp contrast to the testimony he gave on Tuesday, when the vice-chancellor told the inquiry investigating alleged government interference in academic opinion polls that he had 'no recollection' of whether he passed on such a message to pro-vice-chancellor Professor Cheng Kai-ming and colleague Professor Felice Lieh-Mak at a meeting on May 11 last year.
Both of them said he did, and Professor Lieh-Mak considered this was 'political pressure' on the university.
Controversy flared when the South China Morning Post published an article by Dr Chung, head of the university's Public Opinion Programme, on July 7, saying pressure had been put on him to stop conducting polls on Mr Tung's popularity and the Government's credibility because Mr Tung did not like them.
Continuing his testimony on the eighth day of the hearing, Professor Cheng paused briefly when he was asked categorically by the inquiry panel's lawyer whether he had forgotten making the remarks to the two academics or had never made them. 'I can say definitely I have never told them such . . . If I have no recollection, how can I tell them? I cannot possibly tell them something which I have never heard. So therefore I can recall that I never told them this,' he said.
Professor Cheng said neither Dr Chung nor his Public Opinion Programme had been mentioned at three meetings he had had with Mr Tung since he became Chief Executive. He said the meetings were always on 'broad issues' such as technology.
Sharing Professor Cheng Kai-ming's observation about the university being marginalised, the vice-chancellor said: 'I do have this observation that we, Hong Kong U, are not as much represented as we hope we should be [on newly established government-appointed committees].' But despite having met Mr Tung on March 13 last year, he said he did not raise this issue.
