IPM scholars critical of gov’t ‘passive administration’

During an academic seminar organized by the Macau Polytechnic Institute (IPM) two days ago, professor Ieong Wan Chong pointed out that the passive administrative culture in Macau, with the mindset “no action leads to no mistakes”, is incompatible to the nature of governance under the principles of ‘One Country, Two Systems’ and ‘high degree of autonomy’.
The academic seminar focused on the evaluation and advancement of public administration and services.
The scholar from IPM’s One Country Two Systems Research Centre stressed that the result or achievement of public administration is not the key point. Instead, he called on people to focus on the legitimate actions or inactions of the government.
Moreover, Ieong claimed that it is society’s judgment, rather than the feeling of officials about themselves, that is crucial. As a result, the scholar said that all public servants, regardless of their position in the government, should bear the sense of action.
Meanwhile, another IPM professor, Ji Chaoyuan, has pointed out that the supervision of the government by the Legislative Assembly (AL) is insufficient.
He also argued that if there is no transparent regulatory procedure that is accepted by society, it is very unlikely that there will be any improvement in the achievements of the public administration in Macau.