The review of the Statute of Militarized Personnel of the Security Forces of Macau (EMFSM) that has been prepared by the government, with special efforts from the Secretariat for Security, is expected to drop the word “militarized.”
That will be the proposal from the government, said Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak, on the sidelines of yesterday’s inaugural ceremony for the new director of the Correctional Services Bureau.
Wong said, “After the handover, the responsibility for the defense came under the central government […] We are a service of security forces and according to the basic law we don’t have any military service, so we suggested this word be removed.”
“This doesn’t affect our nature. It is just a matter of clarifying the functions,” he added.
The revision of the statute aims to make careers in the service more attractive by merging the two different career paths (for the basic and higher positions), benefiting those that are currently in or will embark upon such a career.
“Our goal is to create one single career joining the two [career paths] in a way that all people can access the higher positions,” said Wong.
He explained that in the old statute, there were two separate careers and that people included in the basic career could not progress to higher positions.
“In the future this will be possible through exams and training,” he said.
According to Wong, people without academic qualifications can now access higher positions. This will “allow the promotion of more frontline people and to attract new talents to our forces.”
The proposal will be ready to enter legislative processes during the first semester of 2017. As for the entry into the force of the new regime, “this will depend on the Legislative Assembly and its workload,” said Wong.
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