Kapok: Pluto-mediocracy

It was indeed a small piece of news: a local tycoon’s construction company being granted a renovation work contract for a government building without having to go through a public tender. This is not illegal: the laws that apply make room for exceptions to “public tendering,” and in this case the justification given for the MOP27 million contract was that “security issues” were involved, as the renovation work would take place next to the government headquarters, thus requiring “special and confidential” treatment. Yet I could not help reminding myself what Au Kam San, a democrat legislator, once had said: “exceptions have become the rule in Macao,” giving evidence that out of a few hundred construction and renovation projects that should have gone through public tendering, only a handful had actually complied. In that particular case, the company involved, Man Kan Ltd., had already been granted at least four such contracts by the government, as reported by Hoje Macau, and “all the renovation works for government buildings since the handover” if we trust José Pereira Coutinho, another vocal and independent legislator. Moreover, Man Kan Ltd. is not run by any mini-tycoon… its chairman of the board is none other than Fong Chi Keong, who happens to be also the president of the Association of Building Contractors and Developers, the vice-president of the Macao Chamber of Commerce, the chairperson of the Kiang Wu Charitable Association (founded in 1871) that runs the Kiang Wu Hospital, the chairman of the Macao Daily Readers’ Charity Fund that is behind the charity “Walk for a Million”… and also a legislator, sitting as one of the four indirectly-elected legislators representing the business interests in Macao.
Mr Fong is a well-known figure, and he claims ancestry in the territory over some 200 years, and thus has formed connections that cut across the hold of the four main families (the two Ho, Ma and Chui). A round face adorned with a crew cut and a sharp gaze behind large metal-framed spectacles, he is also known for his coarse language, so much so that a Youtube channel called the “Cannon Channel” 大砲頻道 is dedicated to his many blunders and less than subtle passing judgments. Many times over he has felt threatened by youth, questioning the sanity of young “agent provocateurs” manipulated by old democrats or characterizing young people daring to voice out their frustrations as “losers”. Of course all this is compensated by lavish charity spending in several youth-oriented ventures, as Mr Fong has allegedly given away a hundred million yuan to the Nanhai district for educational purposes—all the more commendable for a man who barely finished high school. For sure Mr Fong does not really approve of the concept of accountability, and he often reacts very buoyantly albeit senselessly when his stewardship is being questioned, whether it concerns the final destination of the money raised by the “Walk for a Million”, the discrepancy in salary raises at Kiang Wu Hospital or even his excessive absenteeism in the legislature… Only his Man Kan Ltd. dealings manage to keep him quiet!
A mere “edit (slightly) and paste” of what was once noted by the great German sociologist Max Weber perfectly applies to Mr Fong: “There are two ways of making politics one’s vocation: Either one lives ‘for’ politics or one lives ‘off’ politics”. In fact, the two often come together: one who lives for a cause also lives off that cause. The problem arises when one exclusively lives “off” politics!

Published in Macau Daily Times, May 24th 2013

Kapok: Tyrannies of Numbers

It is indeed an oft-repeated mantra regarding China: one of the issue that blurs our analytical perspective is that numbers are big there; and when I say big, I mean huge; and when I say huge, I clearly imply massive. Economic growth, population, size of cities, Internet users, and members of the Communist Party: everything is enormous, beyond any other country except for India. But then numbers in India, although the country has been part of the original and fast rising BRIC league right from the start (expanding now in BRICS, BRICSI and even TIMBI!), have been regarded up until recently as an impediment rather than a blessing: illiteracy rate, criminality, the multiplicity of states and union territories making the federation more fragile, and even the “inferiority complex of the majority” of Hindus vs. Muslims, etc. Now that the “demographic dividend” along with the benefit of “free thinking” fuelling modernized entrepreneurship seem to have shifted in favor of India, China’s horizon appears to be rather darkened because of its outdated “one-child policy” along with its very constrained paths to innovation, enlightenment far too often falling victim of plutocracy. Size does matter, but the very nature of the social, economic and political fabric of a nation will ultimately matter even more.
Macao has to suffer from its own tyranny of numbers: insolent years of GDP growth at a time of world recession; gambling revenues six times the ones of Vegas; largest casino premises in the world; biggest water show on the planet; one of the world’s lowest rates of unemployment; and of course one of the most indecent government surplus in the world when countries considered to be birthplaces of modern civilization are selling off national treasures to any investment fund, sovereign or less so, showing up with cash-laden briefcases. When a government is running a deficit and credit becomes scarce, austerity measures or budget rigor, as we now call it in France, become a necessity—yet the timing of such measures is still hotly debated. When a government is barely spending 45% of its revenues, what do we call it? Preemptive rigor or blindness to much needed investments for the future?
Wednesday’s tropical shower should act as a wake up call, a strident whistle blow in the deafening silence of ineptitude. In just three and a half hours, one meter of water fell on Macao, cascading in steep staircases, submerging roads, tossing vehicles on the side and flooding car parks and ground floors in several parts of the city—some below sea-level, but many above. I incidentally happened to be driving at 8pm that day, and witnessed first-hand the chaotic stir all of a sudden engulfing the city, from peninsula to far-off Coloane, bridges included. For some reason it reminded me of the 2011 Bangkok flooding that took months to recede. Nothing of that magnitude in Macao, and yet the lessons from the Thai capital’s upheaval found some strange echoes in Macao’s own commotion. Bangkok happened to be a manmade disaster brought by years of unrestrained urban development that had totally destroyed one of the oldest and most sophisticated drainage-canal systems. Macao’s drainage system has never been that sophisticated, but it is clearly obsolete and certainly not on par with the needs and challenges brought by ten years of fast and furious economic development. We indeed have Third World problems in a First World territory with First World revenues: luckily for us, the pouring lasted just a few hours and the next day was sunny.

Published in Macau Daily Times, May 11th 2013