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
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