Ng: Law ‘to protect the general interest of Macau’

Ng Kuok Cheong (center)

Lawmaker Ng Kuok Cheong told the Times that the Land Law can only be considered unfair “by those that feel that they cannot earn so much money, so they feel it’s unfair.”
”To protect the general interest of Macau’s population, the law is ok, because all the concessionaires got the land when Macau was still very poor and they had enough time to develop, especially after 1999,” Ng argues. “They already earn  a lot of money from different lands. They already profit too much. I don’t think the Land Law needs to be amended,” he concluded, adding that “most of lands not developed are due to the lack of ability of the developers to develop it and because they were granted too many lands at the same time, choosing to develop only the ones that were most profitable.”
According to Ng, “Macau benefits more if the lands are returned to the society and more public houses can be built on them.”
Another lawmaker, Pereira Coutinho noted, “it is a government competence to present any proposal regarding the need of amendments. Otherwise we might be doing things that are contrary to the original idea from the legislator […] that would be appropriate to listen to the government opinion on the matter as we cannot forget that this law was approved with a majority of votes.”
Coutinho says that now is not the proper time to raise this matter. “At the moment, there is a system that allows appeals to the courts and there is a jurisprudence on this matter,” he stated.
Secretary Raimundo do Rosário has addressed this issue several times, most notably during his latest visits to the AL plenary. “We are doing everything according to the law,” he repeatedly stated, adding that he personally has no “legislative power.”
Lawyer Gonçalo Mendes da Maia tends to agree: “The secretary is a bureaucrat, not a decision maker. He is not the Chief Executive.” Mr Mendes added “he [the secretary] is correct when he says that ‘with this law I can only declare the caducity of the lands’ as secretary he doesn’t have another way to proceed.”