IACM’S headquarters
The Executive Council (ExCo) has concluded an analysis of the administrative regulations that will change the practices of three government institutions. In a press conference held on Friday at government headquarters, ExCo spokesperson Leong Heng Teng revealed that the new capabilities of the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (IACM), the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC), and the Macau Sport Development Board (ID) will be published soon in the Official Gazette and will become effective from January 1.
As explained by Mr Leong, the purpose of these measures is to “implement the policy of rationalization of staff and administrative simplification.” As a result, some services previously under IACM management, namely those in the area of culture, recreation and sports, will now be managed by the IC and ID.
After the revamp, the IC’s internal structure will expand to consist of eight departments and sixteen divisions. One of the highlights among other relevant changes is the creation of a new Department for Administrative and Finance Management.
New features also include the creation of the Division for Cultural Heritage Protection and the Studies and Projects Division, which will be tasked with “proposing movable and immovable property of cultural interest for [heritage] classification.” A new Planning and Development Division for the Cultural and Creative Industries will also be created. The new structure of the IC will employ a total of 253 staff members. From these, 249 are coming from the IACM.
The ID is the other institution to expand. The institution will even experience a change to its designation (Chinese title only) losing the “development” dimension to its name and becoming only “Sport Board.” Similarly, the “Sport Development Fund” will become “Sport Fund.”
More importantly, the service headed by José Tavares will acquire several new mandates. For example, the ID will be required “to ensure the application in Macau of the international convention against doping in sport.” They will also be “defin[ing] physical activities and sport programs [suitable] for the participation of people with special needs” in order to promote sports for people with disabilities.
The ID’s structure will grow to five departments and eleven divisions, while its staff will grow to 68 people, 17 of whom will be coming from IACM and 29 from the extinct Macau Grand Prix Committee.
The ID will be the institution experiencing the most changes in terms of number of new departments (3). The new additions will be the Centre for High-Performance Athletes Training, a new Department for Administrative and Finance Management, and the new Department of the Macau Grand Prix and Major Sports Events.
Aside from these three major departments, the Sports Medicine Center will support the Macau Committee Against Doping in Sport in order to help the ID fulfill its new responsibilities.
José Tavares
ID president ‘confident’ in successful Grand Prix
The ID’s president, Mr José Tavares, has expressed that he is “confident in a successful staging of the coming Macau Grand Prix.” The comment was made on the sidelines of Friday’s press conference, in which he announced the public department’s administrative revamp.
Mr Tavares explained that the new structure, created under the Department of the Macau Grand Prix and Major Sports Events, will create “important synergy” among the current staff of the IDM and the new staff coming across from the Macau Grand Prix Committee. For several years, the current team has been responsible for organizing various sporting events such as the Marathon, the Dragon Boat Regattas and the Volleyball Grand Prix. They will now benefit from the added value of 29 new staff members from the committee.
“I think it’s a challenge for the ID, but it is also a way of making decisions more easily, because if we are responsible for organizing all the sports events, our negotiating power is totally different, even with regard to the sponsors,” he said.
The President of the ID also explained the organisation’s new responsibilities regarding doping prevention and punishment. He justified these new measures by citing China’s signing of the convention against doping in sports, which grants added responsibilities and powers to Macau. “Since we are not a full member, before we could only delegate the power to punish athletes involved in doping cases to the international federations. Now we can also apply our own preventive and punitive measures,” he added.
The president of ID also said that not many cases of “doping” have been recorded in Macau-based sports. He recalled that, in the last few years, there have been only two doping-related cases, both of which occurred in the sport of bodybuilding.
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