Briefs | Measures proposed prior to criminalizing illegal guesthouse

Guests at the Macau Forum, including lawyer Paulino Comandante, expressed their doubts about criminalizing illegal guesthouse operations. Comandante suggested that the government should first amend Macau’s law with particular focus on improving the requirements for property owners and real estate agents so that they are careful about to whom they rent out their houses. He also proposed that the government enhance promotional campaigns to tourists and collect information from illegal guesthouse websites. The lawyer proposed that the Macau government consider issuing licenses to guesthouses.

 IAM advisor criticizes housing transportation non-coordination

Lam U Tou, member of the advisory council of the Municipal Affairs Bureau, believes that Macau’s public housing projects did not take into consideration public transportation when they were built, according to a report by Macao Daily News. Lam criticized the government for never having considered the overall transportation situation when designing public housing projects. He also noted that this oversight has been frequently covered by the Housing Bureau with public funds. Lam also proposed that public housing project transportation conditions should be a key element in future considerations on public housing.

Restoration of Science Center to cost MOP100m

Renovation works of the exterior of the Macao Science Center could cost some MOP100 million, after it was damaged by the two strong typhoons that hit the SAR in 2018. According to Liu Chak Wan, chairman of Shareholders of the Macao Science Center, the project is costly as it requires re-designing and re-installing the fixtures. “If you only fix it piece by piece when it falls, then it would be very cheap if you just supplement it. Yet this won’t guarantee that more pieces would drop off next year, so we took them all this time so we could replace them, which is what makes the project more expensive,” said Liu, as cited in a TDM report. The revamp project is set to be concluded within a year.

IC notifies police over unlicensed construction works

The Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) has notified the police that they must compel the managers of the Kun Iam Tong temple to stop unlicensed construction works. In a statement issued yesterday, the IC states that it met with the temple’s management on Jan. 9. At that time, “the person responsible for the temple pledged to strictly respect the law.” However, the IC visited the site over the weekend and found that the construction works were still ongoing, “causing damage to this heritage building.” Regarding the fact that the temple did not follow a previous embargo order issued by the IC, the bureau says that it will “strictly follow [up on] the matter and take steps to assert the legal responsibility of this action.” The bureau also warns that causing damage to heritage sites is a crime.

Man arrested for robbery

The Judiciary Police arrested a mainland man yesterday suspected of robbery in a hotel room in Cotai. The victim was a mainland woman working as a sex worker. The suspect contacted the victim thorough mobile chat to meet in a hotel room. During the meeting, the woman was tied up by the man and two of his affiliates. The suspects took the woman’s jewelry and cash, and forced her to transfer RMB20,000 to the arrested man. The other two suspects are still at large.