Gov’t’s procurement limit value proposed to increase six-fold

The Executive Council (ExCo) has completed its discussion on the amendment of law No. 122/48/M, during which the government proposed increasing the limit value of public procurement six times, the ExCo announced at a press conference on Friday.
The council referred to the changes in the prices of local consumer products, raw materials for production and construction materials, as well as wages and salaries paid in recent years.
“The Macau SAR has drafted the present law proposal, proposing the increase by six times the limit values of all procurement procedures defined in the regimes for expenses with works and acquisition of goods and services approved by decree-law no. 122/84/M,” the ExCo stated.
“This is to simplify the procurement procedures and increase administrative efficiency, as well as to help the Macau SAR to take advantage of the administration’s development investment and expenditure plan, even more effectively with a view to adjust and stabilize the economy, promoting the sustainable development of society.”
According to the Secretary for Administration and Justice André Cheong, this proposed change does not affect open public tenders.
“We all know that the limit value written in the current law reflects the value from the 1980’s, which both the public and the government know are incompatible with the current reality,” said Cheong.
The city’s current law suggests that engineering projects worth over 2.5 million patacas and service and asset projects worth 750,000 patacas must go through a tender process.
Once the amendment comes into effect, the limit for these two types of procurement will go up to 12 million patacas and 4.5 million patacas, respectively.
“As for the overall public procurement, not just the value, the government has received many opinions which it needs to contemplate. We will first adjust the value. As for the improvement of the entire law, we hope we can make a proposal in 2021,” said Cheong.