Ho: Visits during legislature meetings useless

Legislative Assembly (AL) president Ho Iat Seng said that it was improper for local officials to meet their central government counterparts in Beijing during the annual sessions of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in March.

Ho was speaking on Monday on the sidelines of the annual legislature meetings in Beijing.

The Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Alexis Tam, as well as several officials under his portfolio, went to Beijing on March 8 and 9. They visited a number of the central government’s senior officials, including Education Minister Chen Baosheng and Culture Minister Luo Shugang.

When asked by the media as to what he thought about secretaries from Macau visiting Beijing during the NPC and CPPCC meetings, Ho expressed his doubts that Macau government officials could achieve anything “concrete” by meeting their counterparts in the central government during the “two sessions”.

He said that senior officials working in the central government’s ministries and commissions were busy attending or preparing for various events – such as meetings with delegations from provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, as well as the two SARs and Taiwan – apart from plenary meetings.

“Officials of ministries and commissions have been very busy lately. They [Macau officials] ended up visiting ministry and commission officials merely for the sake of doing so. The local government did not obtain concrete achievements from the visits [to the ministry and commissions],” Ho said, as quoted by Macau News.

Ho also claimed that the governors of provinces and the secretaries of the various provincial committees of the Communist Party of China (CPC) have been told not to visit ministries and commissions during the “two sessions” as “[the central government] doesn’t want them to disturb ministry and commission officials, [thereby] preventing them from addressing and tackling issues raised by NPC deputies.”

Reacting to Ho’s comments, Alexis Tam has stated yesterday that he traveled to Beijing following an invitation by Central Government authorities.