On the lawmakers’ agenda

ABUSE OF POWER ON PUBLIC SERVICES Pereira Coutinho, said that “seniority, merit, professional experience and competence were all almost replaced by family relations and friendship” as requisites to assessing the public servants’ work performance. He also claims that many supervisors undertake an “abuse of power” over government workers in order to make them fail. He added that psychological and even physical attacks are transpiring that contribute to a lowering of the general morale of workers.
He stated that the announced “independent committee” would not solve any of these problems, as the members of the body would be chosen by the government and third parties.

GOV’T RENTALS Leong Veng Chai, addressed the plenary in the period before the agenda to criticize the government’s decision regarding the rental of private facilities. The lawmaker noted that the government last year spent around MOP1.1 billion on rentals of private spaces and the venues which host the Public Prosecutions Office and the Court of First Instance, among others He took the opportunity to address the issue specially after the information that the 1st Notary Office currently operating in the Holy House of Mercy building in the historical center is to be moved to the MSAR Service Center in the Areia Preta district.

PUBLIC CONSULTATION Wong Kit Cheng, expressed concerns over what the lawmaker considers a “manipulation of the results of public consultations.” Wong said that the substitution of the sale of live poultry for refrigerated poultry meat in the markets had run contrary to true public opinion. She said that the government reached the conclusion that “the majority of the people were not against the measure” by consolidating two opinion categories together – those in favor of the measure and those who did not express an opinion. The lawmaker claims that in this way the government is forcing the results to be favorable to the measure they seek to implement. Wong suggested that instead the government should take on board the opinion articulated by Zhong Nanshan, a member of Chinese Academy of Engineering. Zhong stated that a centralized poultry slaughter similar to what transpires in both Taiwan and Singapore “would be a viable option for Macau” for preserving the business activity of market sellers.