The consultation exercise began in mid-December 2004 and ended in June, during which the public was admitted free to exhibitions featuring the three proposals at several venues.

Visitors were given a comment card on which to express their opinions. The cards were placed in collection boxes at the exhibition venues or sent in via the Internet, fax or by post. The consultation exercise was commissioned by the Public Policy Research Institute of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

ADVERTISEMENT

The research institute received a total of 33,416 comment cards.

Some 72.7 percent of the cards received responded to the question "Which proposal should be taken forward to the next phase?"

Of these, 54.7 percent preferred proposal Z, 33.8 percent went for proposal X and 18.2 percent chose proposal Y.

However, the research institute found that 4,176 cards responding to that question had been flagged, meaning they were submitted in identical envelopes or had similar mailing labels, and that their answers to the questions were very similar. More than 90 percent of the flagged cards voted for proposal Z.

Excluding the flagged cases, the percentages favoring Z and X were closer. The percentage favoring Z dropped to 47.8 percent, and the percentage favoring X increased to 39.9 percent.

This raised suspicions that one of the shortlisted bidders might have attempted to defraud the poll, according to independent legislator Albert Chan.

"The government should disregard data obtained from that question when considering the successful bidder. [It] should also give lower marks to the bidder in question," he said.

But the government did not disclose the names of the X, Y and Z bidders. Nor did any of the three respond to the accusation.

Deputy Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands Au King-chi said it was difficult to judge whether there was an attempt to defraud.

But she added the government would not disregard the data and would consider various factors and public opinion when deciding which should be awarded the project.

She said the government had predicted there would be errors in the poll, and therefore had also asked the research institute to conduct three telephone polls comprising 4,553 respondents.

"We will carefully analyze the data obtained," she said.

The telephone survey revealed that more than 80 percent of the respondents said they had no opinion on which proposal the government should take forward to the next phase.

More than 60 percent of the respondents said a cultural district should be established along the waterfront area of West Kowloon, and more than 75 percent said the project should sustain cultural and arts development of Hong Kong.

More than half also supported the use of the canopy as the landmark for the project.