‘Step-down is according to the original plan,’ gaming inspection chief says

The step-down from the post of director of the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) by Paulo Martins Chan was expected and done according to the original plan, the director said today (Saturday) on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of the “Healthy and Fun Carnival” that took place at Broadway Macau.

In an interview with the Times, Chan said, “This decision was already taken last year, during the term of the previous government,” further explaining, “My secondment would end on December 1 and at the time the former Secretary [Lionel Leong] asked me to stay to pass the ongoing working to the next government. After that, the new Secretary [for Economy and Finance, Lei Wai Nong] also asked me to stay on the post for at least six months more and that is what I did,” Chan said noting that now that the pending work has been concluded and the matters have been passed to the new director of DICJ he finally can return to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) from where he had been initially requested.

Chan explained that the request from Lei for him to stay at least six months (after November last year) was in the sense that granting that Chan would still be in charge of DICJ at the time of the presentation of the Policy Address for this year by the Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng.

“The decision was made. The work was passed on. I think this is the right time for me to return to the MP,” Chan concluded leaving a thank you note to the previous Chief Executive and Secretary for Economy and Finance and well as the staff at the DICJ that “always supported me.”

Return to MP where he is ‘needed’

In the same interview opportunity to the Times, Chan also said that the return to the MP besides being a natural move had been long due, revealing that the Prosecutor-General Ip Son Sang have been reminding him often that he was needed at the Office.

“During the past few years, the Prosecutor-General called me on several occasions requesting me to return [as soon as possible] to the MP since several co-workers had retired, namely some Portuguese judges, which created some lack of human resources [at the MP].”

Sense of accomplished duties

Doing an evaluation of the work done and goals achieved over the past few years, the director of DICJ noted that he leaves the Bureau with a sense of accomplishment of the duties that he was attributed.

“At some extent, I can say that we promoted some reforms in the DICJ,” he said adding, “We implemented a few measures and we achieved some good results namely on the prevention of money laundering in which in APG (Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering) we had a good evaluation and personally I also got an award by an international organization. From my point of view I think that was very positive,” Chan said although acknowledging that there is still “a lot of work to be done.”

Adriano Ho, the successor

To the Times, Chan also confirmed that Adriano Marques Ho would succeed in the post as the next director of the DICJ.

“Last night the Secretary [Lei] already confirmed that would be Ho the chosen one. I believe that the government should have carefully weighed their options before picking a name for the post and I also believe that he has all the conditions to do a good job,” Chan said.

Questioned on the background of the successor and the possibility of an increasing influence of the security sector, Chan said, “I believe that the increasing and stricter enforcement of regulations has been already a direction followed in the past few years [direction that should continue with Ho],” which he said to be a person that is aware of the realities of the gaming sector and in this sense “has some advantage to implement [more measures] and to continue on such work [of regulating the sector].”