CHONGQING - A recording clip on the Internet allegedly showing a government official talking about fengshui has sparked controversy as it seemed to suggest the construction of a building was halted because the official believed it would disturb the fengshui of a nearby government compound.

Several versions of the recording have been uploaded onto the Internet. In the longest recording, lasting 31 minutes, a man alleged to be Wang Yinfeng, Party chief of Jiangjin district in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, said the under-construction building would block the government building and asked men said to be representatives from the real estate companies: "Do you know what fengshui is?"

However, it is unknown whether the recording is authentic and whether the man in it was Wang Yinfeng, as neither the district government nor Wang has yet responded to the recording allegations.

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A media report on October 8 said that Wang Yinfeng called off the building project because he believed it would block the fengshui of the administration building of the district government.

The district's information office held a press conference Wednesday, denying that Wang had said anything about fengshui.

Jiangjin made an adjustment to the district's urban development plan in 2008, because the Shuiyingkangcheng building project would affect the People's Square Commercial Center Project planning, said Tian Ling, chief engineer of the district's urban planning bureau.

According to the bureau, the square is being built to improve people's quality of life and to create a better urban environment.

The district government had called off the construction of Shuiyingkangcheng project in July and discussed compensation with the developers, but never reached an agreement, said Tian.

However, the developers believed the project should not be stopped as it had been planned earlier and construction had begun before the planning of the square, said Li Haoxue, president of the Chongqing Diyu Real Estate Developing Company, one of the project' s developers.

"Our company has been losing over 50,000 yuan ($7,519) every single day since the construction of the building was stopped in July 27," said Wang Zhiyong, president of another real estate development company.