Secretary Cheong calls for guidelines to govern department mergers

Secretary for Administration and Justice André Cheong Weng Chon has called for the establishment of principles and guidelines for the merging of government departments, as announced last week by Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng.
This year, the SAR government will carry out a public consultation process in relation to administration reform.
At a Legislative Assembly plenary session on Friday, Secretary Cheong urged Macau to clearly establish “guidelines and regulations” for deciding how and when to merge two bureaus together.
“This time we have to establish some principles and guidelines for the merging of the departments. We have to be realistic and analyze the functions of each of them,” said Cheong.
“We also have to set conditions under which bureaus can set up a division or a department. We have to have guidelines and regulations for these,” added the senior official.
According to the policy address delivered by Ho, the administration reform will include the merging of several key departments, among them, the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau and the Higher Education Bureau.
The Chief Executive stated that with the merging of the two education bureaus into one, there will be a greater interconnection of ideas, measures, and policies that span throughout all education levels. He also said that this might contribute to creating conditions for more local students to choose local institutions over those abroad.
Another major restructure on the agenda is the transfer of the Macao Government Tourism Office from under the purview of the Secretariat for Social Affairs and Culture to that of the Secretariat for Economy and Finance. The responsibilities of the tourism regulator are expected to remain the same, with a hand in both attracting tourists from overseas markets as well as overseeing large-scale cultural events in the SAR, such as the Macao International Fireworks Display Contest and the International Film Festival and Awards – Macau.
Public administration reform was one of Ho’s major manifesto pledges during his candidacy for Chief Executive.
In addition to the aforementioned changes, several other public entities will be merged or see part of their responsibilities shift, according to the Policy Address. For example, the Office for the Development of the Energy Sector will join the Environmental Protection Bureau, while the Office of Government will merge with the Government Information Bureau.
The Science and Technology Development Fund, the Economic Bureau and the Transferência Electrónica de Dados – Macau Edi Van, S.A. will be merged together into a department named the Economy, Science and Technology Development Bureau. Staff reporter