Public consultation on a new legal regime to regulate the maintenance and inspection of elevators, escalators and similar devices commenced today.
The new regime that the government wants to implement aims to attribute added competencies to the Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT) as it supervises the entire process.
As the director of the DSSOPT, Chan Pou Ha, explained yesterday in a press conference to announce the launch of the public consultation process, this will be the first legally binding regime to regulate such a sector, as the previous guidelines issued in 2013 “were just instructions and not a juridical regime. [Under such guidelines,] we could only encourage people to follow such instructions,” Chan said.
Two of the major differences between the current guidelines and the legal regime that the government wants to enforce are the legal capacity of the government to enforce the rules, supervise compliance and apply penalties, as well as a clarification regarding the different competencies between the maintenance and inspection of the different kinds of elevator equipment.
Regarding the second difference, the legal regime aims to create a system in which accredited companies performing the equipment annual inspection are completely separate from the maintenance companies, so the different entities can act “independently and impartially,” added Im Hok Meng, a higher technician for the Urbanization Department of DSSOPT.
According to Chan, the focus of the legal regime is that in the future, the “utilization of the elevators will be safer, due to systematic and standardized management, namely of the regular maintenance and repair of the elevators [performed] by accredited technicians and by having annual inspections.”
Chan also explained that currently, multiple entities share responsibility over the elevators, including the owner, the tenant, and building administration, the entities responsible for the maintenance and repairing, and the inspecting and supervising entity. In the new regime, the general supervision of the whole process will pass to the DSSOPT, “to be more effective,” the director remarked.
The regime establishes penalties for non-compliance with the rules, including fines ranging from 10,000 to 400,000 patacas, as well as other assessor penalties in more serious cases.
Out of the scope of this new legal regime will be all the elevator equipment located in private single-house units as well as lifts used for the transportation of food or other items in restaurants or shops, Im explained, noting that in such cases, the equipment will continue to be under the old administrative regulation and will be the responsibility of its owners or tenants.
According to the figures cited by Im, there are over 9,200 elevators in Macau, of which 1,600 are escalators. Around 5,200 are located under private properties and ownership.
When questioned on the topic, Chan said that currently, compliance with the rules of inspection and maintenance, even without the legal regime, reaches about 60% to 70% of all elevators, a figure she considered “acceptable” as it is a non-mandatory system or is recommended.
Chan Wai Hong from the Department of Public Constructions also noted that in the last couple of years, there had only been one case recorded in Macau of a serious accident that occurred with an elevator.
The public consultation period on the new regime will last for 48 days, between April 29 and June 15, and opinions can be sent online via a dedicated website (www.dssopt.gov.mo/pt/elevator) and in person, by filling in of a form to be delivered to the DSSOPT.
During the period of public consultation, the DSSOPT will also organize five public sessions to provide clarification and receive opinions from the public.
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