No rights to land | CCAC criticizes government for irregular land swap

Aspect of the old factory and surrounding area

The Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) has released its “investigation report on the land exchange case related to the site of the Iec Long Firecracker Factory.” The investigation found that not only does the supposed owner, Baía da Nossa Senhora da Esperança Company, hold no rights to most of the land plot, but that the land exchange agreement is null and no compensation from the MSAR government is due.
According to a statement released yesterday by the CCAC, the primary justification for the ruling is that the individual who granted the rights to the land, the former director of the Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT), “was not vested with the statutory power to grant the land by lease,” as per the old Land Law.
On August 10, 2015 the Secretary of the DSSOPT sent a letter to the CCAC and disclosed the file concerning the land exchange case of the Iec Long Firecracker Factory for investigation. The CCAC says it then proceeded to investigate the case in order to “clarify the procedures involved and the legality and reasonableness of the decisions made.”
The report found that, in the 1950s, an additional land concession was granted to the company, so that it could  consolidate its other plots and expand its business. However, by the 1980s, the company was close to shutting down. By 1986, the Portuguese administration had declared the concession contract void, and the ownership of the land was transferred to another party.
The CCAC statement does not specify who owned the land at this point, but says that they applied for the rights to construct commercial and residential buildings on the site. No agreement was reached, however.
Then, in January 2001, the MSAR government, represented by the director of the DSSOPT, Jaime Roberto Carion, and the Baía da Nossa Senhora da Esperança Company signed a “commitment of land exchange,” under which the government agreed to grant a plot of land in Taipa to the company (measuring more than 150,000 square meters), in exchange for the return of other land plots believed to be owned by the company.
According to the analysis of the CCAC, “The commitment is the most important and core document concerning the land exchange of the Iec Long site. However the form of signing and the content of the commitment obviously violated the ‘principle of legality’ [… as] according to the old Land Law, the director of the DSSOPT did not have the competence or was not vested with the statutory power to grant the land by lease.”
“The commitment and the relevant files were not sent to the Land Commission for discussion,” the statement adds. “Thus the commitment does not comply with the stipulation concerning the necessary procedure for disposition of land of the Macau SAR.”
Furthermore, as the rights to the land had already been transferred in 1986, the CCAC believes that when the commitment was signed in 2001, the Baía da Nossa Senhora da Esperança Company did not own the rights for most of the land that was to be transferred back to the government. This implies that the company did not have the right “to promise to transfer all [of] the parcels within the site to the Macau SAR government free of burden.”
“Therefore, the content of the commitment is unable to be implemented and never was,” CCAC concludes. “It is not necessary and not possible that [the government would have] to obtain from the company the other parcels within the Iec Long site that are state property in the first place.”
From a legal perspective the commitment is impossible, stated the CCAC in their report summary.
The CCAC submitted the report to the Chief Executive (CE) who, according to the Government Spokesperson’s Office, has now decreed that the relevant government departments ought to follow-­up with the corruption watchdog.
He also said that the CCAC should investigate whether any evidence of criminal activity can be found in the commitment made in 2001, such as corruption or fraud.

Coutinho criticizes report

Lawmaker Pereira Coutinho has criticized the CCAC report for placing the blame on a single individual: the former DSSOPT director, Jaime Roberto Carion. Coutinho says that the way in which the CCAC has assigned responsibility is “simplistic” and “not elegant.” It is insulting to a man that has served the public interest for so long, he added.

IC accepts responsibility, agrees with suggestions

The CCAC also pointed out in its report that the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) paid out more than MOP5 million in restoration and remediation costs for conservation work on the former firecracker factory.
The IC regards the factory as a cultural icon of the MSAR and is attempting to have it listed as a cultural heritage site.
“There is not any basis for the IC to pay on the owners’ behalf and to be reimbursed later, rather than the expenses being paid [directly] by the ‘owner’,” concluded the CCAC investigation, adding that no evidence had been found of an  attempt by the IC to recover the expenses.
The CCAC warned that, “the ownership disputes of the Iec Long Firecracker Factory should not become a hindrance in starting the evaluation process, since the current Cultural Heritage Protection Law has already set institutional norms on the solving of the ownership of real estate that is under evaluation or to be evaluated.”
“If the conservation and evaluation of the Iec Long Firecracker Factory was carried out in strict accordance with the provisions of the law, it is believed that the result would have been much more effective,” assessed the CCAC in its summary report.
In a statement released last night, the IC said that they are paying great attention to the CCAC report and agrees with the suggestions provided over how to protect the factory as a cultural site.
The IC said that the factory, which is over 90 years old, has important cultural value and that the bureau will expedite the process of its listing.