Arnaldo Santos and Raimundo do Rosário (right)
The Legislative Assembly (AL) gathered yesterday to discuss the proposal presented by lawmaker Au Kam San. In debate was the request for a change on the current system used by the government to allocate public housing to households.
Under scrutiny was the fact that the current system is based on three different ordination groups and a lucky draw process, which is considered unfair by many sectors of the society.
The lawmaker requested the government return to the prior point-based system in which applicants were ranked according to their household, assets, income and special attention is given to households with elderly or handicapped people at their duty.
Following the words of Au was lawmaker Mak Soi Kun who was quick to add, “We have to take in good note the people with more needs. The lucky draw seems to be fair but in fact isn’t, it’s just a matter of luck. The ranking by points is the most fair one.”
Such debate of the proposal and related comments received an immediate response from the Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raimundo do Rosário: “We also agree with the by points method so I don’t think that we have a problem here,” he said. “We already said that we would revise the law and when we do that we will have this in note.”
Lawmaker Ella Lei addressed the plenary to add that a points-based system should take into account the “duration of residence in Macau,” as a way to prevent public housing resources ending up in the hands of “new immigrants,” an idea which was also mentioned by Au.
Rosário then explained that he always agreed with the idea of a regime based on points and that this was not implemented earlier because he “faced a problem” when he took office. “At that time that was a tender already open and there were 40,000 candidates for about 1,000 houses,” he said. “We opted for this regime because it was faster. It was a matter of time limitation.”
Adding to Rosário’s explanation, the president of the Housing Bureau (IH) Arnaldo Santos warned that although it is widely agreed upon, the points system is a “slow process that can take from 6 to 9 months to conclude.”
“We will try our best that the candidates can present all documents right from the moment of application so we can accelerate the process,” Santos said.
Ng Kuok Cheong questioned the timing, asking when the government will introduce the new rules and if such a decision is still dependent on a public consultation.
The lawmaker noted, “whatever the system we will use, we will still have a problem as the demand tops by far the supply,” he said.
In reply, Rosário remarked that as he had mentioned during his previous visit to the AL early this month, “I will not open a tender to 200 housing units only, this makes no sense at all. We have to do big things not small.” He added that “first we need to review the law of affordable housing, first of the affordable renting and then of the affordable acquisition,” explaining that “the one of affordable renting is already on going” and noting that “during the upcoming Policy Address (LAG) for 2018 I will have already more precise information that I will reveal.”
Several lawmakers insisted on the need to establish a permanent system or a fixed time for the tenders to happen, an idea that Rosário refuted by explaining that it would be impossible to keep a “stable offer” of housing units, which is an essential condition for such a system.
The secretary also advanced that according to his estimated figures for the upcoming years, “we will have on Area A and E [of the new landfills] more than 90,000 housing units both in public and private market which will raise the total to about 314,000 housing units. I believe this offer will be sufficient for the upcoming future needs.”
As for schedules, the secretary noted that only when there is a preliminary project will it be possible to know exactly the number of housing units, at which point it will be possible to open the tender to receive applications.
Au Kam San expressed dissatisfaction with Rosário’s explanations. He said that the new system (without a permanent ranking list) is indeed a “fake points system” noting that to keep the list would “help the remaining candidates to understand more clearly when they would finally get a house.”
The IH president explained that such an idea had been discarded since, “keeping a ranking list for a long period of time, it’s complicated and that can cause many issues at the time of the final attribution since the applicants at that time might not be eligible anymore.”
Vice president Lam Heong Sang remarked that the current system has a “big flaw” as “we can’t know what kind of applications have more urgency” noting that the decision to implement the ranking lists is a matter of “political opinion” within the government.
The Secretary tried to cool down the debate around the details of what the new system would be like, noting that such an amendment to the law would have to be discussed at the AL in the coming legislature. The most advanced project, he said, is Avenida Wai Long, which is expected to occur 2019. Lam also noted that over the next 2 years Macau will see an increase of 13,000 housing units to the market (3,000 public houses and 10,000 in the private sector), which according to Rosário will “relieve some of the pressure.”
Melinda Chan suggested that instead of the expiration of the ranking lists after each tender, the government could adopt rules that require the applicants to update their applications.
In a laconic way, Rosário reaffirmed his opinions and noted that he would not promise something that he knew he would not be able to fulfill due to pressure from the lawmakers.
Finishing the debate, Cheung Lup Kwan suggested the government to “do studies” and to “resort to the civic associations in order to obtain real and concrete data about the real needs [for public housing quantity and typology].”
