Nam Van lake IFT Café to become private

The IFT Café, located next to the Nam Van lake will be under public tender, the Institute for Tourism Studies confirmed with the Times yesterday.
Sherry Lee, senior director of the Public Relations department at IFT, told the Times that the cultural authorities are preparing for the tender.
In her words, the IFT and the government wants to “activate areas near the Nam Van lake, and it did not want the restaurant to be permanently run by the government.”
Earlier in August, lawmaker Zheng Anting delivered a written inquiry to the government regarding activities around Anim’Arte Nam Van, where the IFT Café is located.
On August 29, Fanny Wong, president of the IFT, revealed in a reply to Zheng that the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC), the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), the Sports Bureau (ID), and the IFT, all as a tender entity, had already called public tenders to ask commercial entities to manage the integrated project, Anim’Arte Nam Van.
The café was being run by the IFT as a training center for its students. Costs associated with food and beverages sold at the café represented 33 percent of its total income, which is a reasonable ratio, as written in the reply.
Moreover, IFT used its own staff to instruct its students at the café in order to not recruit more staff. All these employees worked excessive hours during the weekend, which lead to high costs in terms of human resources.
According to the president, the café’s first two months of operation did not turn any fiscal surplus because of human resource costs.
Facilities at the café could be handed over to IFT after the school’s temporary administration, as said by Wong, adding that such arrangement was already planned when the school purchased the facilities.
Sherry Lee, told the Times that transferring the café to a private owner was part of the strategy since its inception.
Last year, the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam, announced during the Policy Address that the area lining the Nam Van Lake facing the government headquarters will include cafés with outdoor areas managed by the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC).
Tam’s announcement follows almost four years of stagnation in the area since the bars there were shut down against the will of their owners. JZ