AL committee enquires about Hac-Sa adventure park budget

Lawmakers were concerned with the lowering of the estimate for the pricing of the future Hac-Sa Adventure Park, a parliamentary committee disclosed yesterday.

The parliament’s Committee for the Follow-up of Public Financial Affairs, presided over by lawmaker Wong Kit Cheng, revealed that the price estimate for the project had dropped by MOP27.6 million to MOP180 million in the third quarter of this year from the amount in the first.

Committee members were concerned with the reasons behind the decrease, in addition to the project’s future budget and execution. Requests have been made to the government for further explanation, Wong added.

On the other hand, Wong also said that the approved budget for the third quarter of this year had risen for MOP440 million quarter-over-quarter. Budget execution rate, meanwhile, has risen by 19.7%.

In addition, the committee president has pointed out that 11 projects in the government’s Investment and Development Expenditure Plan (PIDDA) had increased pricing, when comparing the third quarter with the first. Besides, 77 projects saw unchanged price tags while 77 have smaller price tags.

Among all these projects, 21 saw price tags over MOP100 million after price adjustments, with four having come without explanations. As a result, the committee has requested the government to explain.

The four projects concerned the LRT East Line, the Public Prosecutions Office at the base court in Nam Van, the Amizade Bridge and the A1 government housing project on New Urban Zone A.

Another parliamentary committee has concluded its discussion on the Bill concerning motor vehicle registrations. The Bill will then be delivered to the plenary for discussions before voting.

The Bill mainly focused on the digitization of the registration process.

The main contents include the introduction of electronic submission of registration requests; the integration of registration services and improved coordination through interdepartmental mechanisms; the empowerment of registration staff to perform registration actions stipulated in the Bill under the supervision and leadership of the registrar; the processing of the ownership registration certificate of vehicles; as well as the improvement of the current car registration system, in areas such as increasing the contents to be registered, paperless registration and enhanced identification of stakeholders.

When asked by the committee about the scope of authority of digitized registrations, government representatives underlined that initial registration of ownership, transfer of ownership, and nullification of registration, as well as change of addresses of ownership will be conducted digitally after the passing of the Bill.

The Bill has also proposed that vehicle registration and initial ownership registration would be better incorporated by digitization and simplification. The proposed means of operations is that vehicle registration be conducted at the Transport Bureau. Once approved, the data will be transferred to the Public Registration Office. Payments for connected fees can be settled online. When the application goes through, a digital registration document will be issued by the Public Registration Office.

In response to the complete digitization of initial ownership registration, committee members expressed their support.