José Pereira Coutinho, lawmaker and president of the Macau Civil Servants Association (ATFPM), is calling for additional and augmented financial support measures for local residents, in the government Policy Address for 2022 (LAG22).
The matter was discussed at government headquarters yesterday morning in a meeting organized with the Chief Executive (CE), Ho Iat Seng, to discuss matters related to the (LAG22).
Leaving the meeting, Pereira Coutinho revealed that many topics were discussed, among the most significant of which related to government financial support for residents.
“Regarding the social matters, we have called for [a raise in] the Wealth Partaking Scheme [cash handouts] for 12,000 patacas next year, as well another 10,000 patacas for the electronic consumption scheme [increased from the 8,000 patacas distributed last June],” he said.
“7,000 patacas must be given back to the senior citizens, since the government has stopped paying this sum from the Social Security Fund since the year 2020, so we are calling for the payment of a total of 21,000 patacas [to each individual in] this group (referring to the year 2020, 2021 and 2022),” the lawmaker added.
Pereira Coutinho also argued that any kind of support from the government should take into account first the disadvantaged people, such as people suffering from chronic diseases, the elderly, the single-parent families, and informal caretakers, among others.
Besides the social matters, the ATFPM is also concerned with the economy: especially with matters concerning trade with the mainland.
“It is not easy to conduct transactions between Macau and the mainland due to customs bureaucracies and taxes that are charged to all products that exit Macau and head the mainland. This has been creating difficulties on the generating of benefits for the Small and Medium Enterprises,” he said, adding that the supports being currently given to the taxation group B companies are inadequate, since they exclude almost every company, including those which report very small profits.
As Coutinho explained, most of these companies are evaluated by the Financial Services Bureau (DSF) and since they do not have to pay taxes, they do not appeal from the estimated profits evaluation made by DSF, a condition which excludes them from government support measures.
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