Pereira Coutinho wants AL Public Finances Committee to analyze investment flops

Lawmaker José Maria Pereira Coutinho is unhappy with news that government investments made through the Social Security Fund recorded a loss of 8 billion patacas last year and has called for a “deeper analysis” of the issue by the Legislative Assembly (AL), he said in an interview to TDM Radio.

He said the AL’s Follow-up Committee for Public Finance Affairs should analyze the money lost from the government investments made through public funds to determine the reasons and discover ways to prevent losses happening again.

The lawmaker said there is currently a problem with this government keeping public expenditure under control.

Pereira Coutinho has called on the Committee of the upcoming legislative year to dedicate itself almost exclusively to addressing government investments and results so that “things get clearer and more transparent.”

Additionally, he wants the government to try to reduce public expenditure, particularly in public works that are done repeatedly and are a waste of money.

The poor investment performance from the government in 2022 has long been reported, including by the Follow-up Committee for Public Finance Affairs that, in November last year, cited the report of the first half of 2022 when saying that government investment plans had recorded net losses of about 8.3 billion patacas.

At the time, the president of the Committee, lawmaker Wong Kit Cheng said it was the first time such a loss had happened.

Citing the government report on the question, the lawmaker said the government had blamed the loss on “instability in the international markets.”

She added that when compared with the same period in 2021, government investments declined in value 59.2%.

Leading the drop at that time was already the Social Security Fund with MOP7.63 billion lost, as well as the Pensions Fund, which also recorded a significant devaluing (MOP1.91 billion).

A similar result was seen regarding investments made through the Macau Financial Reserve that lost some MOP17.4 billion, citing the same reasons.