On the lawmakers agenda

GOV’T RENTS Kou Hoi In, Cheang Chi Keong and Chui Sai Peng have urged the authorities to devote land resources to building a facility large enough to hold public departments. Following the authorities’ revelation last month that the public administration was to spend up to MOP1 billion on rental costs next year, the lawmakers urged the government to “regain its control over the massive rental costs” and prioritize, by way of a list, the departments in need of their own places. They noted that other business operators’ rent dilemmas have now spread to the government, and that businesses believed the initiative could resolve their own problems by more resources being released to the rest of society.

PEARL HORIZON Vong Hin Fai, Tong Io Cheng, Si Ka Lon and Ma Chi Seng have called on the government to revise the regulation governing land use, in order to safeguard the Pearl Horizon flat owners’ rights. They insisted that there were flaws in the existing law that led to the controversial episode. In their spoken enquiries, the lawmaker also related the pre-sale buyers’ interests to those of the general public, which, they claimed, would be compromised if the incident was not settled. Earlier, Gabriel Tong, a lawmaker and scholar from the University of Macau’s law department who was assigned by the authorities to offer legal assistance to the proprietors, sobbed in an interview while speaking of the episode.

DIVERSIFICATION Lau Veng Seng has expressed doubts over the government’s efforts to promote economic diversification in the region, given that a majority of university graduates go for higher paying jobs than those available in the cultural and creative industry, the MICE sector and Chinese medicine. He suggested that the authorities should connect the higher education institutions with enterprises in order to introduce relevant practical work into the curriculum. He believed that the hands-on experience helped to better prepare those students entering those industries after school, having already attained some expertise.