Kapok | The missing links

Eric Sautedé

The results of the public consultation pertaining to the “Macao Tourism Industry Development Master Plan”, conducted from May to July 2016, have just been released. Although their full integration into the final draft of the overall plan should not be known until mid-2017 (phase 3!), they make for an interesting read (a long one too: 843 pages!): everybody who says the contrary is a liar! From what I have read in the press, my feeling is that these 1,185 opinions collected over two months have been grossly underreported by the press. Laziness? Cynicism? Contempt? A bit of all three?

As has been noted before in this column, public consultations have become the alpha and omega of non-democratic governance, which is trying somehow to pay lip service to the concepts of engagement on the one hand, and accountability on the other. The bottom line is to provide an occasion for the people — the residents more than the citizens — to have a say, voice their concerns and make suggestions. It is of course extremely positive, as it implies a form of participatory outlook aiming at bonding the community together and avoiding the usual symptoms of disenfranchisement. People can blame themselves if they don’t seize that opportunity, and the government is somehow forced to act with added transparency and make room for more varied interests. Convenient, for sure.

Of course, the level of inclusion of opinions expressed by residents is discretionary and entirely up to the powers that be. In terms of decision-making, consultation corresponds to the very first and short steps of a long and tedious staircase. In some instances, the hope is that nobody will react and thus the consultation process amounts to little more than pretence and formality. In Macao, the number of consultations has inflated tremendously in the past few years, especially since their due processes were revised in 2011 — 86 are marked as completed and accessible on the government’s website. The executive intent has become even clearer since the website gathering these PR campaigns started to include at its bottom the “advisory bodies” (47 such committees) placed under the authority of the Chief Executive (CE) and his five secretaries: everybody is entitled to an opinion, but how and why it makes its way into a public policy is entirely up to people who make the actual decisions — people who are unfortunately not elected. Yet sometimes these consultations end up blocking a project too blatantly associated with the usual enduring vested interests of family businesses in Macao. Miracles do happen.

Reviewing the almost 1,200 opinions collected by the Macao Tourism Office would go beyond the scope of this column, although it is worth noting that the report encloses extremely stimulating remarks by numerous residents, among them (a few) academics and business stakeholders — including, notably, one of the licensed casinos. Doubts are cast over ways to achieve the four goals, but suggestions are always made — and the original document released for consultation was generous in pointing out the numerous challenges ahead. For me, the main issue resides in the lack of clearly delineated convergence between the master plan and the five-year plan announced by the CE last September. It is not too late!

There are, however, two flagrant absences in this report — quite unacceptable ones indeed. The first one concerns academic institutions, which are only present through (fortunately very stimulating) individual contributions. Policy recommendations have to be assessed by academia; otherwise, institutions are defaulting in their duty to socially engage with the community, and are thus malfunctioning. The other one has to do with the outright absence of the Portuguese community and especially the Portuguese newspapers: out of almost 600 pages of raw opinions republished in Section Five, not ONE (!) is written in Portuguese, except for two pages of an interview with Samuel Tong reprinted from Hoje Macau! Being snubbed for lack of relevance means that you have to proactively assert yourself and participate in public debate: otherwise, what is the use of having three Portuguese dailies read by fewer than 500 people? Folklore?