The six gaming concessionaires should take responsibility for the payment of the big expenses held by the Macau government, the president of the Macau Civil Servants Association (ATFPM), José Pereira Coutinho said yesterday on the sidelines of a meeting with the Chief Executive, Ho Iat Seng to discuss opinions from different sectors on the government policy address for 2022.
According to Pereira Coutinho, the way for the government to save public resources is not to reduce the level of entitlements but, instead, to pass some of the “fat bills” to the gaming concessionaires.
“The government should pass on the ‘fat bills,’ namely for the Light Rapid Transit (LRT): we suggest that the six [gaming] concessionaires should account for its maintenance. We also suggested, on the proposal for the new gaming law, that the [same] six concessionaires should [also] be accountable for the maintenance of the new Islands Hospital which will operate under a public-private partnership,” he said, adding also that the government should specify that the gaming companies must directly allocate 3% of gaming revenues to the residents of Macau.
“This [3%] should be attributed directly without passing through any public service or the Macao Foundation (FM) as we know that the money which enters in the FM then is shared as they please and they award it more or less arbitrarily,” Pereira Coutinho remarked.
The also lawmaker believes that the government, instead of calling for gaming companies to participate more in other activity sectors, should restrain such expansion.
“We see that the gaming concessionaires are offering services that should be done by the local Small and Medium Enterprises. This is what causes them to fail and go bankrupt because they cannot compete with these huge corporations that are offering services that they should not be allowed to [offer],” Coutinho stated.
Wouldn’t it be as simple as putting the gaming tax up by 1% and resolve this. The taxes are to pay for these items, why ask the casinos to pay twice?