Commission of Audit slams ‘Wifi Go’ service

The Commission of Audit (CA) released an audit result report this week regarding the city’s ‘Wifi Go’ hotspot service, saying that the system has had evident problems during its planning, as well as problems in services supervision, access installation and other issues.

The report points out that expanding the wireless network coverage and enhancing the quality of international communication services is a course of action prompted by the government’s five-year plan.

Since September 2010, the Macau government has installed ‘Wifi Go’ free access points in several governmental buildings, public facilities, major border checkpoints and tourism sites.

The report informs that, until March of 2016, Macau invested cumulatively MOP161 million patacas of its public funds on the ‘Wifi Go’ network installation and service operation.

During the period from January to May of 2016, the CA conducted an audit regarding the network installation and service and through this found out that the former Bureau of Telecommunications Regulation (DSRT) had set up a goal for the ‘Wifi Go’ service, which was overly ambitious and more conceptual than practical. 

These vague goals made it difficult to determine whether the objectives proposed by the bureau were achieved, thus creating an illusion that the more access points were installed, the better the ‘Wifi Go’ plan would be.

In addition, it was revealed that there were no clear justifications for the selection of most of the access points.

The audit report also showed that the monitoring mechanism the former DSRT had provided had been imperfect and insufficient, as it was unable to ensure the quality of the service.

The CA chose 30 out of 183 access points and concluded that nine out of the 30 had an unsatisfactory Wi-Fi connection reliability.

Resorting to connection and speed tests, only two-thirds of the 30 access points passed the tests.

In turn, the quality of the outdoor access only saw a 48.6 percent approval rate. “The low connection quality, besides constituting a waste of public money, also affects the tourists’ experience, leaving them with a negative perception regarding the image of Macao,” the CA’s report reads.

It was also disclosed that in six of the eight DSRT procurements of the service, the actual number of installed access points was less than what was written in the contracts.

Twenty-five installation procedures which were not carried out were still paid, with the total amount of money involved summing up to MOP422,000. 

The CA said that “the arrangements are unsuitable and unreasonable,” regarding the contract between the bureau and the service providers.

The report says that the former DSRT did not reflect upon the aforementioned facts in its settlement documents, which caused the problematic contract to unfold undetected over the years.

It was only in September 2016, after the CA pointed to the aforementioned problem, that the former DSRT amended the contracts.

The former DSRT also explained that the supplier hired engineers to replace those ones which they themselves did not provide.

However, the CA said that “under the condition that there are no written approvals, then, obviously, it violated legal requirements by replacing projects specified in the contract with other projects.”  JZ