Two lawmakers from New Hope (Nova Esperança), a group linked with the Macau Civil Servants Association (ATFPM), believe that the financial support handed out so far by the government to the population is insufficient, and want the government to issue additional support of 15,000 patacas to all Macau residents next year, the lawmaker José Pereira Coutinho said during a press conference yesterday.
Coutinho and Che Sai Wang also called for the government to distribute an additional 7,000 patacas to older adults as compensation for the money that is ordinarily injected annually into the pension fund accounts, something that has not happened since 2020, as the funds are tied to the government accounts surplus.
These two proposals were discussed late last month when the lawmakers met the Chief Executive (CE), Ho Iat Seng to give their opinions on the Policy Address for 2023, Pereira Coutinho noted.
Among other proposals delivered to the CE, Pereira Coutinho said that a proposal to reduce the hotel quarantine period from seven days to three days has also been discussed, as well as other measures directed toward the gradual reopening of borders.
“We also proposed to the CE that the quarantine [on arrival] should be reduced from the current seven to three days to gradually open the city, as is happening in Hong Kong. This is a very important matter, especially for the gaming industry that now has rules concerning the need to attract guests from foreign countries instead of those from the mainland or even Hong Kong. Additionally, we also proposed that the nucleic acid tests (NAT) that are mandatory for some working sectors, as well as border crossing, should be free of charge to ease the burden on families,” he remarked.
Pereira Coutinho said that unemployment and support for the underprivileged will be among the priorities for the upcoming legislative year due to start next week.
Anticipating the works for the upcoming year at the Legislative Assembly (AL), he noted that six important laws are being discussed. He noted that the regime governing publicly owned companies is very important as it relates to a very significant share of the government’s yearly expenses. However, this is kept almost in secrecy as such companies spend public money without any scrutiny from the public.
Pereira Coutinho noted another regime in the hands of lawmakers – the Urban Renewal Law – the relevance of which has become apparent because of significant delays.
“There are over 30,000 old buildings at the moment that need renovation or need to be completely rebuilt, but the law that regulates all this has not yet been finalized and published,” the lawmaker said. He also noted that the AL only approved half of the gaming laws required to be able to launch the tender.
He noted the second part of the gaming regulations that is related to the operations of the casinos “is directly related to the competitiveness of local gaming when facing the regional competition.”
Another of the significant areas that he perceives as needing time and attention from the lawmakers is the so-called “Talents Regime,” which aims to regulate the attraction of skilled professionals to Macau under a residency scheme. This new regime is intended to finally replace the troubled regimes operating under the Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM).
On this particular matter, Pereira Coutinho says he was concerned with the time taken to process applications as well as the number of cases still pending resolution at IPIM. Both are matters for which the government needs to find an acceptable solution.
Civil Servants Statute has some big issues
The last of the laws to be addressed by the AL falls on the turf of the lawmakers themselves, and relates to the rights of civil servants.
Pereira Coutinho says that while there are several articles that present problems, there is one in particular that he will not accept and will fight to change.
This article states that the leadership can relocate civil servants to other services or duties if the need arises, independently of their position and career post.
On this topic, Pereira Coutinho said, “The leader can force any worker to do anything he wishes. This means that a highly qualified technician can be sent to ‘sweep the streets’ or something else. This breaches the whole hierarchy [of the public servants] and is damaging to the rights of workers. We will raise this matter at the plenary as soon as possible. It affects the dignity of the workers and will for sure create a lot of problems inside the public service,” he concluded.
Over 30,000 requests processed, lawmakers claim
Lawmakers José Pereira Coutinho and Che Sai Wang said that in the past legislative year (October 16, 2021, to August 30, 2022), the headquarters of the ATFPM, which works as the legislators’ office, has received a record of over 30,000 requests from the public, they said at a press conference.
The lawmakers said that the past legislative year demanded a lot of hard work from all the staff to receive and process between 30 to 50 daily requests.
According to Che, about two-thirds (20,000) were requests for information on topics related to the pandemic, layoffs, quarantines, and many others. The lawmakers also said a lot of requests had been received from civil servants, and in particular from the Security Forces, complaining of unfair treatment in regard to overtime and other matters related to pandemic outbreak control work.
