The government has admitted asking the public if finance chief John Tsang Chun-wah should quit over this year's budget fiasco - and said it was not the first time it had polled people on the performance of top officials.
But in a move that has drawn fire from lawmakers, it has refused to disclose the polls, saying to do so would hurt its ability to run future polls.
Officials will only say that the controversial poll, carried out in March by the government's top think tank, the Central Policy Unit, was to 'collect public views on the budget'.
Lawmakers criticised what they described as the increasing secrecy of the taxpayer-funded CPU, arguing it has become a tool for the government to manipulate public opinion.
'[The CPU] has commissioned an institution to collect public views on the 2011-12 budget and their response to some incidents in the community,' acting Chief Secretary Stephen Lam Sui-lung told the Legislative Council yesterday. 'The results were for government's internal reference only.'
Asked if the CPU had previously conducted polls on whether an official should resign, Lam said: 'The CPU has conducted opinion polls on similar subjects before.'
A South China Morning Post request for the findings of the CPU's budget poll made under the Code of Access to Information was turned down by the administration 'to ensure objectivity of the surveys'.
