Ng Kuok Cheong | ‘Five-year plan is merely a promotional booklet’

Aspect of Friday’s press conference

The Macao Community Development Initiative (MCDI) has sharply criticized the government’s Five year Development Plan. Ng Kuok Cheong, who is a member of the association together with Au Kam San, said during a press conference held on Friday that the plan is merely, “a promotional booklet from the local government without any real value.”
Ng noted that the region’s first five-year plan is different from similar plans that have been implemented for a long time in mainland China. “In China, the 5-year plan is a real plan expressing what they propose to do in the 5-years’ time period. They plan, draft and they announce and when the time is up the plan must be finished,” the lawmaker said. “In Macau it is different. This plan is only a promotion booklet because the Macau government sent officials to Central Government to learn about their 5-year plan and once they got back they wanted immediately to show that they did their ‘homework’ to please the Central Government,” he concluded.
During the press conference, the association stated that the government’s five-year plan is “insubstantial, vain and with a serious lack of objectively measured goals and milestones.” He added that “it doesn’t address Macau’s major problems or present any solutions” for the same problems.
According to lawmaker Ng, one of the main topics to be addressed in a mid-term plan was the topic of democratization of the region, following what is stated in the territory’s Basic Law.
With that in mind, the association is presenting an alternative plan, which included a development plan regarding the elected seats at the Legislative Assembly (AL) from the current date until 2025. The aim is to reach (in 2025) a system where 32 out the 33 lawmaker seats are occupied by directly elected lawmakers. The result would be achieved by a gradual reduction on the indirectly elected lawmakers who would be successively replaced by those elected by the population.
As Ng Kuok Cheong said, “Our proposal is according to Macau’s Basic Law that allows changes on the proportion of the directly elected, indirectly elected and appointed legislators. We want to do this step by step, by firstly cutting down the appointed legislator seats to the minimum, and then trying to persuade the indirect election sectorial groups to change their political participation.”
Ng added that the association’s proposal allows sectorial groups to have political participation; however, they argue that the participation should not be through indirect elections but instead through direct elections as well as the participation in other committees and groups according to the sectorial area of expertise.

‘Police are testing the decision of the new prosecutor-general’

Questioned by journalists on the sidelines of the press conference organized by the Macao Community Development Initiative (MCDI), lawmaker Ng Kuok Cheong commented on the case that involves New Macau Association president Scott Chiang. Chiang was questioned by the police and named suspect in a case of disorderly conduct regarding the May 15 protest against a RMB100 million (MOP123 million) donation to Jinan University.
“Police are [testing] some new ways to deal with the protests. In the past years, similar behavior didn’t lead to any investigation,” Ng said.
According to Ng Kuok Cheong “there are two reasons for this [change in police attitude]: The change of the [public] prosecutor-general led them to try the new decision; and second, the decision of the final appeal court (TUI) has been strengthing  them since they have already won the case relating to the route of the protest. The lawmaker added: “The police want to input more limitations on the protest, they have been doing this for the last few years, but now they think that there is a new opportunity. They are trying to do more in terms of limitations and it is easier to justify an accusation.” RM