Our Desk | ‘Scamsidy’

Renato Marques

Subsidies, who would reject them? I am guessing no one, and in times of extra difficulties, a government subsidy seems always to be the perfect solution to patch a rising issue and bring back the praising smiles.
For those used to living in Macau, it is no surprise that the local government often finds the “magic effect” of subsidies as though they are an ace up the government’s sleeve that will tackle every problem.
It was like that for a long time, when after the handover, people soon realized that with the exponential economic growth of Macau came a drastic reduction in quality of life. The Wealth Partaking Scheme, among other subsidies, came to be a reality that would never again be prescinded in the universe of local residents.
But, as often happens with money-related issues, money attracts greed and while no one rejects it, some are not just happy with the share they get and want a share of what others get.
From the Continuing Education Development Plan to the Healthcare Subsidy Scheme, there are many examples, some very fresh in the memory, of scams and malpractices performed by people and institutions to unlawfully get money from the government.
Just last week, we heard about another of these scams involving health vouchers amounting to over 9 million patacas.
According to the report, a group of twelve people behind the unlawful scheme acquired the amount in only a few months through the unlawful use of over 11,000 Macau ID cards.
And if it is possible to perform scams on such a scale with vouchers that are worth only 600 patacas per person, imagine what has been done with the continuing education policy that grants up to 6,000 patacas for activities that are supposed to be for education, training, and the increase of personal and professional skills.
But while these unfortunate events have been happening and the government tries to tackle them by closing the loopholes, other opportunities arise.
The newly created Electronic Consumption Voucher, aiming to revitalize the economic activities of local companies through internal consumption, seems to contain another of these loopholes that allows fraudulent activities.
Although it has not yet been put into operation, as soon as its details were known by the public, and especially after the vouchers had started to be collected, underground movements kicked-off, making use of contact lists and social media networks to bypass a system that aimed to provide support to local residents and companies.
From people that are and have been abroad for years finding ways to get the vouchers collected by family members and friends, to people willing to purchase other people’s e-vouchers in exchange for a smaller amount of cash, a little of everything started to be seen around Macau.
Again, the e-voucher seems to be another plan that, like the others, started with good intentions but would potentially be transformed into the most recent “scamsidy” opportunity for the upcoming months. This is as the first 3,000 patacas are loaded on each card, and another 5,000 will follow in a couple of months.
According to official data released by the Economic Bureau and the Monetary Authority of Macao, in the first phase of registration there were about 650,000 people that filled out an application to collect the e-vouchers. The government noted that it believed this number would increase in the second registration period.
Considering this figure, I get confused. After all, how many residents of Macau are there?