Lawmakers Sulu Sou and José Pereira Coutinho want to call former Chief Executive (CE) Edmund Ho and former Secretary for Economy and Finance Francis Tam to a hearing in a plenary session at the Legislative Assembly (AL).
The hearing aims to ask the former high-ranking officials how the airline Viva Macau was able to receive government loans totaling MOP212 million, which the government never managed to recover.
According to the lawmakers, the hearing proposal has been delivered to the AL and is currently waiting to be scheduled for presentation to the plenary.
All the lawmakers that compose the plenary will have to vote to decide if the hearing goes forward or not.
In the justification note for the request to vote on the matter, the lawmakers noted that although the topic has been addressed during the hemicycle on several occasions it was never clear what led Tam first, then Ho to authorize the loans.
In 2018, Sou and Pereira Coutinho presented a debate proposal on this topic, which was also brought to plenary on August 7.
At that time, the proposal was voted down by the majority of lawmakers, gathering only six votes in favor, by the two bidders and lawmakers Ng Kuok Cheong, Au Kam San, Agnes Lam and Ella Lei.
Of those voting against, several lawmakers justified their vote by saying that the topic had already been addressed by both the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) and a Follow-up Committee of the AL.
Some, like lawmaker Mak Soi Kun, accused the lawmakers of trying only to make the discussion the AL Committee had public, or to “turn AL into a court” and “interfere with judiciary authorities,” Song Pek Kei said.
The CCAC probe was opened at the request of the state-owned Industrial Development and Marketing Fund (FDIC), which loaned MOP212 million to the carrier in 2008 and 2009.
As the loans exceeded MOP9 million, they required authorization from the then CE Edmund Ho, following FDIC regulations.
Pereira Coutinho and Sou were dissatisfied with the final report, as they wanted to investigate family ties as potential reasons for interference in the loan process. The alleged ties include nephew of the former CE, Kevin Ho, who was a director at Hong Kong-registered guarantor company Eagle Airways.
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