The court case involving the unlawful granting of residency by several high-ranked officials from the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) has caused over 600 other applications to be stopped, the Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong admitted on Friday at the Legislative Assembly (AL).
At the plenary session dedicated to the sectorial presentation of the Policy Address for 2021 (LAG2021), Lei said that there are currently over 600 applications regarding residence renewal pending at the IPIM.
The Secretary acknowledged this while presenting the results of the work done by the IPIM.
“Since October 29, we have analyzed over 127 applications. It is taking some time to adjust our procedures [since the case involving the officials] and we still have over 600 applications that have been accumulating,” Lei said, adding that the IPIM, under the leadership of the Secretariat for Economy and Finance, will accelerate the pace of the analysis of the applications as much as possible “without compromising on the analysis criteria.”
Lei also aims to clear IPIM’s image of the controversy, following Jackson Chang’s, the former head of the bureau, case of breach of secrecy and inexact asset declaration.
Henceforth, all applications which satisfy conditions for deferral will be deferred, and that the institute will also have quicker procedures for communicating about any irregular applications to the appropriate authorities.
Questioned on the topic, Lei revealed that as of the end of October this year, the IPIM has forwarded a total of 24 cases suspected of containing irregular information or documents on applications for residency renewal. Such cases have all been sent to the Public Prosecutions Office for further investigation and clarification, he said.
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