Albano Martins
Even though I am no longer working there, I raise the following as a matter of justice – that precious and forsaken jewel!
For those with no knowledge of the times, in the early 1990s, the company Nam Van was entrusted with an area of 130 hectares along the bay of Praia Grande, which had reclaimed 50 ha of land for construction and 80 ha for two large lakes, Nam Van and Sai Van, with ecological platforms and aerators for water oxygenation. Ten hectares of this area was later handed over to the government, as was a public area.
4.1 km of four-lane roads were built in Praia Grande as well as two roads along the banks linking the Inner Harbor. The entire area had a traffic light system and a dyke was built next to the old bridge to allow the connection of NAPE to the Macau Tower and the Inner Harbor. All this was transferred to the government, including floodgates, dykes, other equipment and pumping stations.
The sewage that had been discharged to the bay was channeled through a new 2.4 km sewer network to sewage treatment plants.
The stench was over and the city had gained a new face.
7,000 private and 4,150 public car parking spaces and two public parking silos were also designed and transferred to the government.
The company fulfilled its responsibilities to the government within the deadlines set.
What did Nam Van get in exchange for this enormous work and a 2.4 billion cash premium and 1.4 billion in infrastructure? 31 plots of land of a total of 46 that were reclaimed from the sea, leaving the government with the remaining 15.
With the real estate crisis of the 1990s, which continued until gaming liberalization, Nam Van was forced to hand over two more plots of land in Zone B to pay the final premium.
In 2002, the government solicited from the company the remaining four lots it had in Zone B to facilitate the plans for the liberalization of gambling, with a promise to deliver the same gross construction area, in Zones C and D, next to the Macau Tower and to immediately reorganize these lands, which were worth much less than the four original lots where Wynn Macau and MGM are currently located.
However, and for this new land allocation to take place, the government suspended the detailed plan for these zones, making it impossible for the company to develop within the stipulated period of development the 13 lots there plus the four that it had been promised and never received.
Time passed and the public service did nothing.
Investors got stressed and tried to present alternative plans to deal with this agreement of transferring the land allocation to a less valuable area, but the government would consider nothing at the time, nor was anything else forthcoming.
As a result, with 14 years more than enough to develop this entire area, the company had its hands tied, the government would not move forward with any redevelopment project, would not add the four plots that the company had originally been given to allow for the liberalization of gambling and, ultimately, it lost all 13 land plots in Zone C/D.
According to official conversation and the courts, the company lost all the allocated plots of land for not developing them.
And we work under the rule of law!
The truth is that the company didn’t develop them because it was not allowed to do so.
What was lost, because the project was not developed, by the expected dates or even with delays resulting from the government’s dithering?
Billions.
Imagine justice functioning independently of political power….
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