The publication of the yearly report of the Legislative Assembly always provides an interesting snapshot of politics in Macao and a better understanding, albeit limited in depth, of who does what and why.
The report in itself has been trimmed this year — 38 pages for the 2018/19 session versus 48 pages for the previous one — and really pales when compared to the document issued by the Hong Kong Legislative Council — 175 pages in the latest file available in our sister SAR.
Moreover, starting in 2014/15 with the first report put together under the efficient-minded presidency of Ho Iat Seng, these reports have shied away from making any comparison with previous sessions when examining the number of laws passed.
Up to 2014, a simple graphic with a timeline would serve as a benchmarking for the current session: that year, only 9 laws had been passed, against 15 in 2012/13, and a multi-year bar chart reminded the casual reader that the most active legislative session ever had been the 2008/09 one, with a record 27 laws adopted. That session corresponded with the last year of Edmund Ho as Chief Executive: the vast majority of the bills are introduced by the government in Macao, and thus the idea was clearly to start with a clean slate for the next government after years of backlogging.
The year 2018/19 is no exception — although I had to go back to previous reports to establish that fact — as a total of 25 laws were adopted last year (almost on par with Hong Kong!), making it the most active legislative session of the Chui Sai On era. Almost three times more laws passed than in the least active year — only 9 laws approved in 2015/16. But Mr Chui should not feel mortified as only 6 laws were ratified in the very troubled session of 2006/07 at the time of Edmund Ho — the year of the downfall of Ao Man Long and the largest May Day protest.
Clearing the way for the upcoming Ho Iat Seng era was therefore the priority, and that was done quite efficiently: 28 laws were introduced in 2018/19, and 25 passed, that is a successful ratio of 89%… quite an improvement on the 48% of 2017/18! Yet, when one looks carefully, a good third of the 25 laws adopted are actually amendments of existing laws, even though, again, that is an improvement on the previous session when half the laws were mere revisions.
The report also provides insight into the commitment of individual legislators to their job. Again, there was a time when independent associations in Macao would survey the citizens regarding the performance of their legislators. There was also a time when a website — http://almacau.net/ — would feed us with extremely detailed information about each and every lawmaker, allowing us to connect the way they voted with their political stance and vested interests in society. But these times have been gone for years and we are left with an ever-shrinking and rather unsurprising report.
The least active legislators in raising questions to the government are the ones appointed by the CE or small-time businessmen-turned-politicians with dubious background and limited abilities, such as Cheung Lup Kwan and Chan Chak Mo, who spent the whole year formulating exactly ZERO oral or written interpellation addressed to the government. Cheung Lup Kwan together with President Ho Iat Seng, who resigned in July and was too busy preparing for his solo candidacy to the CE position, are the two legislators with the worst attendance for plenary meetings: respectively 35 and 34 recorded attendances out of 52 meetings altogether! Mr Cheung, who has been the least committed legislator ever since he was first elected in 2001, pushed the contempt for the function to a new height this year by showing up only ONCE in 65 meetings of the third permanent commission of the Assembly, despite that commission examining eleven laws!
Self-induced ignorance and inaction can indeed be rewarding!
Published in Macau Daily Times on September 27, 2019
Showing posts with label Chan Chak Mo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chan Chak Mo. Show all posts
Friday, September 27, 2019
Friday, February 24, 2017
Kapok: Smoking gun
Is it me or are we being treated worse than headless chickens with tar-filled lungs? An opinion survey on to smoke or not to smoke in casinos conducted by the University of Macau and commissioned by the six casino licensees? An appended study on the law-compliant quality of the air surrounding “smoking lounges” performed by an offshoot of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University? To show what exactly? That “87% of employees working in gaming areas recognise the significant improvement of air quality in their work environment” and “60% of employees surveyed support solutions that allow smoking lounges”. And this is supposed to be convincing beyond reasonable doubt and pave the way for expensive and state-of-the-art ventilation systems? This is supposed to be the result of an “independent” enquiry when it bluntly contradicts the government-sponsored survey released in January 2015 that indicated that 74% of the population was in favour of a full ban?
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| A holy alliance |
At the time, Secretary for Social Affairs, Alexis Tam did not mince his words: “The Macao government has made a decision and it’s unanimous: [we are calling for] the implementation of a full smoking ban in casinos. The government will not be harming citizens, casino employees and tourists’ health.” He made it clear that he would not bow to pressure because “even with ventilation systems, this could still trigger negative health effects.” One of the licensees with the oldest installations had failed repeatedly the health bureau tests regarding air-quality standards and another licensee had just been fined MOP100,000 for pushing a bit too far the cat and mouse game all of them had been playing with the new regulations.
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| Chan Chak Mo and Sio Chi Wai, the epitome of conflict of interests in the legislature |
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| Vulgar? |
The two studies are far more independent than the KPMG report of 2015, also commissioned by the gaming operators, that was part of a robust and systematic campaign to twist arms in favour of what had been conceived as the “only” viable solution: the smoking lounges. Even pro-business legislators of the Legislative Assembly Second Committee in charge of examining the amended law had been “shocked” to find the report of KPMG — a global accountancy firm with a longstanding relationship with the tobacco industry — on their desk before even starting their work! But soon, these legislators started to play the “delay” game that had bought them 16 months before the initial passing of the Tobacco Prevention and Control Law in 2011. Introduced in July 2015, the revised version paving the way for a full ban is still under discussion, and the initial resolve is now gone in smoke, despite the secretary and even the Chief Executive boasting to the contrary.
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| Did not Margaret Thatcher once say "The lady's not for turning"? |
In 2007, a World Health Organisation report concluded that “ventilation and smoking areas, whether separately ventilated from non-smoking areas or not, do not reduce exposure to a safe level of risk and are not recommended” and in another brochure, the WHO described how “the tobacco industry and its allies [would] challenge the science on the health effects of second-hand tobacco smoke exposure and propose that designated smoking areas and ventilation are acceptable alternatives.” It then stressed that the same ones would “claim that smoke-free laws are a violation of so-called ‘smokers rights’, or are simply not necessary, not feasible, not enforceable and will have a negative impact on business (particularly restaurants, bars and casinos). These claims are unproven and should not be factored into policy-making decisions.”
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| A constant disgrace |
It is thus rather ironic to have Mr Ambrose So, Chairman of SJM, introducing the results of these surveys on behalf of the six gaming operators, given that it was mainly his casinos that had failed the tests in 2013-2014 and that he had suggested SJM facilities should be exempted from the smoking ban altogether. And although this was not stressed in the press release he introduced, 60% of those sampled are still in favour of a total ban if it was to be implemented: facts are stubborn!
By the way, for those whose brain has been fried by cigar fumes: tobacco smoke produces 10 times more fine particulate matter than diesel exhaust! And I am not even counting the chemicals…
Published in Macau Daily Times, February 24th, 2017
Friday, September 11, 2015
Kapok: The art of the meaningful
I am no economist, and yet I have enough interest in political economy to figure out when something is right or not. Such is the case with the dramatically loaded use of the word “austerity” by the government. Is it right – in both its rational and moral senses – to use the word “austerity”? And if it’s not, why use the word despite its dreadful adverse effects?
One can always blame translation. Should we translate 緊縮 (jinsuo) as “tightening” rather than “austerity”, which is better rendered by 撙節 (zunjie), that better conveys the notion of frugality? But then, jinsuo is also clearly used to express a “drastic” reduction, such as “credit crunch”, so it does not seem to be an overstretch to translate緊縮計劃 as “austerity plan”, and Macau Daily News indeed refers to 緊縮政策 when it describes “austerity policies” put in place in debt-ridden European countries.
When did we start talking about “austerity” for Macao? Back in June 2014 at the very start of the dwindling of the gaming industry? In December 2014 when the Budget Law for 2015 was passed? Nope.
Only in April 2015, precisely when the budget of the government was being re-examined and revised. At the time, a vaguely worried Chan Chak Mo, the president of the second permanent committee of the Legislative Assembly in charge of supervising public accounts, raised a pale orange flag to say that if monthly gross gaming revenues (GGR) fell below MOP17 billion then Macao could face a budget deficit by year-end. By his sophisticated calculation, MOP20 billion in GGR per month would total MOP240 billion for the year, and given the tax on gambling of 35%, that would in turn translate into MOP84 billion in government’s revenues… almost exactly the amount envisioned by the revision of the Budget Law in May!
Why the MOP17 billion threshold? Because then, we might really have a deficit – a “crisis” in Chan’s vocabulary – but no explanation (other revenues? actual execution of the budget?) was given regarding the MOP3 billion discrepancy. In the new Budget Law, prospective revenues were revised downward, from MOP154.7 to about MOP120 billion, but then expenses went up slightly (!), from MOP83.72 to MOP83.76 billion…
Ultimately, if need be, Chan revealed that expenditures could “easily” be cut across the board by 5%, without affecting social welfare-related spending or heavy investments. This is, albeit slightly pumped up regarding minor investments (-10%), what was announced on September 1st and Chief Executive Chui Sai On has confirmed that these cost-cutting measures were here to stay.
By any account, the seemingly resolute acts taken in the wake of the bad results of the first eight months of 2015 – we are now below the not-so-thin red line of MOP20 billion per month – do not equate to austerity, which is defined as a set of policies aiming at, by way of spending cuts or tax increases or a mix of both, the reduction of government budget deficits. In the case of Macao, this is an (inflated) “anticipated” deficit: we ran a surplus in 2014 and then we have more than MOP350 billion accumulated in fiscal reserve – not even impacted, so we are told, by the ongoing financial turmoil now affecting Shanghai and Shenzhen. Moreover, the government expects these cuts to save MOP1.4 billion, a mere 1.7% of the budgeted expenditures – so much for the rigor of the measures!
Finally, the Execution of the Budget is only 60% – if we rely on the 2013 figures as the most recent ones have yet to be examined by the Assembly – meaning the government spends, in any case, less than 2/3 of the money it said it would!
Taking a stand and publicly explaining what these spending cuts actually mean – the shy first steps in eliminating waste within public administration and restoring trust of the citizenry in its public service – can only benefit Lionel Leong. Resolutely and personally taking the lead in pushing through the ongoing revision of the new Budget Law framework, thus positioning himself as a manifest proponent of greater transparency and efficiency regarding public finances, might not hurt either.
Published in Macau Daily Times, September 11th 2015
One can always blame translation. Should we translate 緊縮 (jinsuo) as “tightening” rather than “austerity”, which is better rendered by 撙節 (zunjie), that better conveys the notion of frugality? But then, jinsuo is also clearly used to express a “drastic” reduction, such as “credit crunch”, so it does not seem to be an overstretch to translate緊縮計劃 as “austerity plan”, and Macau Daily News indeed refers to 緊縮政策 when it describes “austerity policies” put in place in debt-ridden European countries.
When did we start talking about “austerity” for Macao? Back in June 2014 at the very start of the dwindling of the gaming industry? In December 2014 when the Budget Law for 2015 was passed? Nope.
Only in April 2015, precisely when the budget of the government was being re-examined and revised. At the time, a vaguely worried Chan Chak Mo, the president of the second permanent committee of the Legislative Assembly in charge of supervising public accounts, raised a pale orange flag to say that if monthly gross gaming revenues (GGR) fell below MOP17 billion then Macao could face a budget deficit by year-end. By his sophisticated calculation, MOP20 billion in GGR per month would total MOP240 billion for the year, and given the tax on gambling of 35%, that would in turn translate into MOP84 billion in government’s revenues… almost exactly the amount envisioned by the revision of the Budget Law in May!
Why the MOP17 billion threshold? Because then, we might really have a deficit – a “crisis” in Chan’s vocabulary – but no explanation (other revenues? actual execution of the budget?) was given regarding the MOP3 billion discrepancy. In the new Budget Law, prospective revenues were revised downward, from MOP154.7 to about MOP120 billion, but then expenses went up slightly (!), from MOP83.72 to MOP83.76 billion…
Ultimately, if need be, Chan revealed that expenditures could “easily” be cut across the board by 5%, without affecting social welfare-related spending or heavy investments. This is, albeit slightly pumped up regarding minor investments (-10%), what was announced on September 1st and Chief Executive Chui Sai On has confirmed that these cost-cutting measures were here to stay.
By any account, the seemingly resolute acts taken in the wake of the bad results of the first eight months of 2015 – we are now below the not-so-thin red line of MOP20 billion per month – do not equate to austerity, which is defined as a set of policies aiming at, by way of spending cuts or tax increases or a mix of both, the reduction of government budget deficits. In the case of Macao, this is an (inflated) “anticipated” deficit: we ran a surplus in 2014 and then we have more than MOP350 billion accumulated in fiscal reserve – not even impacted, so we are told, by the ongoing financial turmoil now affecting Shanghai and Shenzhen. Moreover, the government expects these cuts to save MOP1.4 billion, a mere 1.7% of the budgeted expenditures – so much for the rigor of the measures!
Finally, the Execution of the Budget is only 60% – if we rely on the 2013 figures as the most recent ones have yet to be examined by the Assembly – meaning the government spends, in any case, less than 2/3 of the money it said it would!
Taking a stand and publicly explaining what these spending cuts actually mean – the shy first steps in eliminating waste within public administration and restoring trust of the citizenry in its public service – can only benefit Lionel Leong. Resolutely and personally taking the lead in pushing through the ongoing revision of the new Budget Law framework, thus positioning himself as a manifest proponent of greater transparency and efficiency regarding public finances, might not hurt either.
Published in Macau Daily Times, September 11th 2015
Friday, June 12, 2015
Kapok: The difference is Macao... or is it?
While coming back from Hong Kong yesterday, I stumbled upon an old acquaintance of mine, a man of venerable age, a man of the robe—a clerical one—and busy, still, with intellectual matters. After a brief personal recounting, he engaged me on the subject of recent events in Macao. Having to closely follow the nitty-gritty of our SAR’s buoyant political arena, I started painting a contrasting and yet lamentable picture of open-book conflicts of interests, blatant attacks on key principles of the Basic Law—especially when it comes to the separation of powers and the independence of justice—and gross irresponsibility regarding the greater good in a city that is endowed with first world revenues but flawed with third-rated services.
Having made a remark on the SAR’s problem of a lack of spine and principles, my friend observed that this was unfortunately “the reality of Macao,” and that despite all my energy and enthusiasm (not as fast eroding as some would like), not much would change, or at least not in the foreseeable future. I strongly disagree with that, and although I am a pragmatic (meaning not a dreamer) and certainly not pretentious enough to believe I can make a difference on my own—graveyards are full of indispensable men… and women—I sincerely believe that things can and should improve, whatever the context and culture. This is the human condition. When one of our dignified legislators states boisterously that patients cannot reasonably expect all to be cured when going to the hospital, he is basically saying that we cannot hope for better and that there should be no accountability system. Things are what they are because this is how they have always been: Doctor Sun Yat Sen, who was invited by Kiang Wu Hospital to practice Western medicine at the end of the nineteenth century, must be rolling over in his grave!
So no, “the difference is Macao” meaning “why bother?” is simply not for me, and I am truly convinced that those who have made this adage theirs have got their priorities wrong: survival—what kind of legacy is that?—is only a travesty of life. When a majority of politicians are businessmen, pragmatism always prevails over principles—this is true everywhere. The recent interview given by legislator Chan Chak Mo to newspaper Ponto Final is instructive in that respect. Asked why he didn’t pursue his drive to become a directly elected legislator, he simply replied that after an unsuccessful try, he could not resign himself to buying votes, and so he went for a functional seat as it was easier “to control supporting associations”—I would add: it’s even easier when there is only one candidate for one seat! Basically, for Mr Chan, the choice was between “corruption” and “co-optation”. And then, he admits seeing no problem in defending the interests of his constituents (a few dozens associations only): “I represent a sector, I speak for it, and of course speak for myself too.” This is something one can easily agree with, especially when the second standing committee over which he presides manages to delay stringent measures over smoking in public or the minimum wage. Mr Chan is an entrepreneur, the mind behind a big food and beverage consortium. The problem is that he is not backed by the business sector: he represents culture and sports! Does chasing away shops that promote Macau’s creative industries from a heritage building, only to replace them with a Forever 21 outlet, really qualify him? Or is it the horrid Food Festival?
As it is written in the Analects: “At fifteen my heart was set on learning; at thirty I stood firm; at forty I had no more doubts; at fifty I knew the will of heaven; at sixty my ear was obedient; at seventy I could follow my heart’s desire without overstepping the boundaries of what was right.” My old acquaintance is now 83, and thus what is valid for him is not necessarily so for me—a fact he fully acknowledged. And what is valid for politicians in their 60s is not necessarily so for citizens in their 30s. Maybe it is time to accept that fact!
Published in Macau Daily Times, June 12 2015
Having made a remark on the SAR’s problem of a lack of spine and principles, my friend observed that this was unfortunately “the reality of Macao,” and that despite all my energy and enthusiasm (not as fast eroding as some would like), not much would change, or at least not in the foreseeable future. I strongly disagree with that, and although I am a pragmatic (meaning not a dreamer) and certainly not pretentious enough to believe I can make a difference on my own—graveyards are full of indispensable men… and women—I sincerely believe that things can and should improve, whatever the context and culture. This is the human condition. When one of our dignified legislators states boisterously that patients cannot reasonably expect all to be cured when going to the hospital, he is basically saying that we cannot hope for better and that there should be no accountability system. Things are what they are because this is how they have always been: Doctor Sun Yat Sen, who was invited by Kiang Wu Hospital to practice Western medicine at the end of the nineteenth century, must be rolling over in his grave!
So no, “the difference is Macao” meaning “why bother?” is simply not for me, and I am truly convinced that those who have made this adage theirs have got their priorities wrong: survival—what kind of legacy is that?—is only a travesty of life. When a majority of politicians are businessmen, pragmatism always prevails over principles—this is true everywhere. The recent interview given by legislator Chan Chak Mo to newspaper Ponto Final is instructive in that respect. Asked why he didn’t pursue his drive to become a directly elected legislator, he simply replied that after an unsuccessful try, he could not resign himself to buying votes, and so he went for a functional seat as it was easier “to control supporting associations”—I would add: it’s even easier when there is only one candidate for one seat! Basically, for Mr Chan, the choice was between “corruption” and “co-optation”. And then, he admits seeing no problem in defending the interests of his constituents (a few dozens associations only): “I represent a sector, I speak for it, and of course speak for myself too.” This is something one can easily agree with, especially when the second standing committee over which he presides manages to delay stringent measures over smoking in public or the minimum wage. Mr Chan is an entrepreneur, the mind behind a big food and beverage consortium. The problem is that he is not backed by the business sector: he represents culture and sports! Does chasing away shops that promote Macau’s creative industries from a heritage building, only to replace them with a Forever 21 outlet, really qualify him? Or is it the horrid Food Festival?
As it is written in the Analects: “At fifteen my heart was set on learning; at thirty I stood firm; at forty I had no more doubts; at fifty I knew the will of heaven; at sixty my ear was obedient; at seventy I could follow my heart’s desire without overstepping the boundaries of what was right.” My old acquaintance is now 83, and thus what is valid for him is not necessarily so for me—a fact he fully acknowledged. And what is valid for politicians in their 60s is not necessarily so for citizens in their 30s. Maybe it is time to accept that fact!
Published in Macau Daily Times, June 12 2015
Friday, May 15, 2015
Kapok: Embrace a Full Ban!
When conflicts of interests are too blatant, public debate can only be farcical, and yet it is revealing of the challenges confronting the new government. The recent exchanges between some legislators and the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam are a remarkable case in point.
Ever since he took office in December 2014, Mr Tam has made no secret that his number one concern would be “public health” and shortly after a comprehensive survey on the “Regime for the prevention and control of smoking” was released at the end of January, he announced, supposedly “on his own” – or so are we led to believe by not so-friendly commentators – that the government would submit a revised piece of legislation within the first half of 2015 that would make way for a full ban on smoking inside casinos, thus implying that VIP rooms would be involved and smoking lounges on mass floors no longer allowed. Mr Tam reiterated that engagement in April during the policy address, and again this week, while reporting to the legislators.
On Mr Tam’s side, there is an ever-growing corpus of medical studies showing that second-hand smoking is in fact as bad as direct inhaling, recommendations made by the World Health Organisation (agreed to by China’s Ministry of Health since 2007) noting that there is no existing technical solution that will equate to non-smoking, and quite a significant number of business-minded pieces of scholarship attesting that smoking bans have not had an adverse impact on revenues in business sectors of direct concern, and essentially the hospitality sector. Clearly, full smoking bans in public places are the trend, so much so that even permissive New Orleans has banned smoking in bars, casinos and other public areas starting on April 22nd.
Mr Tam has also on his side the spirit of the law that was passed in 2011—the first aim of the law being “to protect [the citizens] from exposure to tobacco smoke”—, the fact that the main causes of death in Macao are aggravated by the exposure to tobacco smoke, and the wish expressed by the frontline workers of the industry to see a full ban on smoking being implemented—87.20% of those directly exposed, the croupiers and casino floor staff. Moreover, in the broader context of China—something far more prevalent these days—the National People’s Congress has committed the country to “full implementation of the smoking ban in public places” ever since it voted in the 12th Five-Year Plan in March 2011.
Adversely, Mr Tam is pitted by the gaming industry that has been relentless in trying to lobby every level of government—including Beijing in March during the double congress—in favour of airport-style smoking lounges, with separate ventilation systems and negative pressure in relation to adjacent areas, in accordance with the regulation published by the Chief Executive in June 2014. Several casino operators, including one with a seat in the legislature, have argued that voiding the previous (and rather recent) regulation would make limited (and costly) sense, and moreover that gambling revenues have been in shambles since June last year and thus a full smoking ban could translate into an additional loss estimated at 15%—no methodology given, but the figure is repeated over and over again.
The problem is that it took an extraordinary amount of time to pass the initial law (16 months, to be precise) back in 2011, and this in no small thanks to Mr Chan Chak Mo (a representative for culture!), one of the most vocal voices against Mr Tam today and the number one defender of the food and beverage industry—his group, Future Bright, is everywhere to be seen in all casinos and just lost 95.6% of its profits in the first quarter of 2015. The problem is then that casinos benefited from a three-year reprieve. The problem is that many casinos failed the health bureau tests and everybody was playing cat and mouse with the new regulations.
More compliance with the spirit of the law might have prevented a change in tune. Lobbying failed, now there is only room for embrace.
Published in Macau Daily Times, May 15th 2015
Ever since he took office in December 2014, Mr Tam has made no secret that his number one concern would be “public health” and shortly after a comprehensive survey on the “Regime for the prevention and control of smoking” was released at the end of January, he announced, supposedly “on his own” – or so are we led to believe by not so-friendly commentators – that the government would submit a revised piece of legislation within the first half of 2015 that would make way for a full ban on smoking inside casinos, thus implying that VIP rooms would be involved and smoking lounges on mass floors no longer allowed. Mr Tam reiterated that engagement in April during the policy address, and again this week, while reporting to the legislators.
On Mr Tam’s side, there is an ever-growing corpus of medical studies showing that second-hand smoking is in fact as bad as direct inhaling, recommendations made by the World Health Organisation (agreed to by China’s Ministry of Health since 2007) noting that there is no existing technical solution that will equate to non-smoking, and quite a significant number of business-minded pieces of scholarship attesting that smoking bans have not had an adverse impact on revenues in business sectors of direct concern, and essentially the hospitality sector. Clearly, full smoking bans in public places are the trend, so much so that even permissive New Orleans has banned smoking in bars, casinos and other public areas starting on April 22nd.
Mr Tam has also on his side the spirit of the law that was passed in 2011—the first aim of the law being “to protect [the citizens] from exposure to tobacco smoke”—, the fact that the main causes of death in Macao are aggravated by the exposure to tobacco smoke, and the wish expressed by the frontline workers of the industry to see a full ban on smoking being implemented—87.20% of those directly exposed, the croupiers and casino floor staff. Moreover, in the broader context of China—something far more prevalent these days—the National People’s Congress has committed the country to “full implementation of the smoking ban in public places” ever since it voted in the 12th Five-Year Plan in March 2011.
Adversely, Mr Tam is pitted by the gaming industry that has been relentless in trying to lobby every level of government—including Beijing in March during the double congress—in favour of airport-style smoking lounges, with separate ventilation systems and negative pressure in relation to adjacent areas, in accordance with the regulation published by the Chief Executive in June 2014. Several casino operators, including one with a seat in the legislature, have argued that voiding the previous (and rather recent) regulation would make limited (and costly) sense, and moreover that gambling revenues have been in shambles since June last year and thus a full smoking ban could translate into an additional loss estimated at 15%—no methodology given, but the figure is repeated over and over again.
The problem is that it took an extraordinary amount of time to pass the initial law (16 months, to be precise) back in 2011, and this in no small thanks to Mr Chan Chak Mo (a representative for culture!), one of the most vocal voices against Mr Tam today and the number one defender of the food and beverage industry—his group, Future Bright, is everywhere to be seen in all casinos and just lost 95.6% of its profits in the first quarter of 2015. The problem is then that casinos benefited from a three-year reprieve. The problem is that many casinos failed the health bureau tests and everybody was playing cat and mouse with the new regulations.
More compliance with the spirit of the law might have prevented a change in tune. Lobbying failed, now there is only room for embrace.
Published in Macau Daily Times, May 15th 2015
Friday, December 19, 2014
Kapok: Blowing Hot and Cold
Politicking in Macao at present is being blurred by the celebratory mood of the year-end, and Christmas has indeed a lot to do with it. With the visit of Xi Jinping on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of the handover (on top of the 65th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China that some associations in Macao have been toasting to since the wee hours of January 1st), the overall atmosphere exudes an ever more ostensible display of loyalty and gratitude towards the benevolent fatherly figure whose tutelage has allowed Macao to (immensely) prosper in the past 15 years. Well, clearly, Macao has been (vastly) transformed since it was handed over back to China in 1999, but still what resonates in my mind is the corporate hype uttered by Sheldon Adelson in August 2007 during the inaugural speech of the Venetian that Macao would never be the same again after the opening of the world biggest casino. And here we are, seven years later, and Macao is seven times bigger than Vegas.
Yet, gaming revenues have plummeted in the past six months, and thus Macao is technically speaking in recession—two successive quarters of GDP contraction—, and the main culprit as reported by many gaming analysts and bankers alike is to be found in the anti-corruption drive that has been targeting both “flies and tigers” on the other side of the Portas do Cerco for the past two years—the latest high-profile victim being Zhou Yongkang, former domestic security tsar and former member of the ultra-selective Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party. Is Santa Claus thus the Whipping Father in disguise? With the trouble encountered by the “one country, two systems” formula in Hong Kong in 2014, it is all but too easily understandable that Mr Xi and his proxies would be quite pleased and even extremely forgiving with scrupulous devotees to a very conservative interpretation of what was imagined by Deng Xiaoping at the end of the 1970s. Public policy non-sense, appalling infrastructures and mismanagement of public funds are indeed little things compared to the unquestionable compliance with a political imperious necessity.
Well, up to a certain point, hence the vocal call for diversification that is now expressly required from Macao—this is not a suggestion anymore, and this time it is for the sake of China as a whole—and the clean-slate approach to the forming of a new government on December 20th. But then why let the Chief Executive nominate someone like Mr Chan Chak Mo on the Executive Council? Mr Chan is a successful businessman (that helps qualify for this consultative body) and has been a legislator since 2001 (representing, quite oddly the cultural and sports sector). But then, he is also the president of the second permanent commission of the Legislative Assembly that tried to push through, in May 2014, the now infamous ‘Perks Bill’ that would have provided golden parachutes to retiring principal officials in Macao. At the time, Mr Chan characterised the bill as “very reasonable”. He also commented that it was “naïve” to organise demonstrations or have petitions signed to oppose the bill, as if the piece of legislature was bound to pass anyway. The president of the Legislative Assembly, Mr Ho Iat Seng, rejoiced at the idea that an additional legislator in the Executive Council could improve communication between the executive and the legislative powers, something that I quite agree with, despite Montesquieu being a fellow Frenchman. Yet, is a legislator who was elected by a mere 53 associations in a constituency in which he was the sole candidate the best choice? Is the man who is partially responsible for provoking the biggest ever demonstrations in Macao in 25 years because of his lack of understanding of the popular discontent the most appropriate? Surely if you want to convey the idea that indeed everything is under control. And then, for Mr Chan, this is just another “business opportunity”: after all, he will get 30% of the Chief Executive’s salary for simply attending one meeting a month… Where has the Whipping Father gone?
Published in Macau Daily Times on December 19th 2014
Yet, gaming revenues have plummeted in the past six months, and thus Macao is technically speaking in recession—two successive quarters of GDP contraction—, and the main culprit as reported by many gaming analysts and bankers alike is to be found in the anti-corruption drive that has been targeting both “flies and tigers” on the other side of the Portas do Cerco for the past two years—the latest high-profile victim being Zhou Yongkang, former domestic security tsar and former member of the ultra-selective Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party. Is Santa Claus thus the Whipping Father in disguise? With the trouble encountered by the “one country, two systems” formula in Hong Kong in 2014, it is all but too easily understandable that Mr Xi and his proxies would be quite pleased and even extremely forgiving with scrupulous devotees to a very conservative interpretation of what was imagined by Deng Xiaoping at the end of the 1970s. Public policy non-sense, appalling infrastructures and mismanagement of public funds are indeed little things compared to the unquestionable compliance with a political imperious necessity.
Well, up to a certain point, hence the vocal call for diversification that is now expressly required from Macao—this is not a suggestion anymore, and this time it is for the sake of China as a whole—and the clean-slate approach to the forming of a new government on December 20th. But then why let the Chief Executive nominate someone like Mr Chan Chak Mo on the Executive Council? Mr Chan is a successful businessman (that helps qualify for this consultative body) and has been a legislator since 2001 (representing, quite oddly the cultural and sports sector). But then, he is also the president of the second permanent commission of the Legislative Assembly that tried to push through, in May 2014, the now infamous ‘Perks Bill’ that would have provided golden parachutes to retiring principal officials in Macao. At the time, Mr Chan characterised the bill as “very reasonable”. He also commented that it was “naïve” to organise demonstrations or have petitions signed to oppose the bill, as if the piece of legislature was bound to pass anyway. The president of the Legislative Assembly, Mr Ho Iat Seng, rejoiced at the idea that an additional legislator in the Executive Council could improve communication between the executive and the legislative powers, something that I quite agree with, despite Montesquieu being a fellow Frenchman. Yet, is a legislator who was elected by a mere 53 associations in a constituency in which he was the sole candidate the best choice? Is the man who is partially responsible for provoking the biggest ever demonstrations in Macao in 25 years because of his lack of understanding of the popular discontent the most appropriate? Surely if you want to convey the idea that indeed everything is under control. And then, for Mr Chan, this is just another “business opportunity”: after all, he will get 30% of the Chief Executive’s salary for simply attending one meeting a month… Where has the Whipping Father gone?
Published in Macau Daily Times on December 19th 2014
Friday, November 21, 2014
Kapok: Moaners
When I voiced concern in my column last February that Ho Iat Seng, the newly sworn-in president of the Legislative Assembly, was openly deploring the lack of “legal training” of legislators and thus questioning their ability to grasp public policy issues, and that Chan Chak Mo, the president of the second permanent commission of the same Assembly, was caught saying legislators should refrain from drafting “projects” of law and exclusively let the government make law “proposals”, I did so in pointing out that these two respectable figures of our community had basically decided on their own to interpret the Basic Law and let go of a key component of the legislators’ power, that is precisely to initiate legislation, as stipulated in article 75 of the Basic Law.
The right of initiative held by legislators is indeed true power and constitutes one of the few “actual” prerogatives that mitigates the derogatory judgment that the Macao legislature is nothing but a “rubber stamp” assembly—toothless and, above all, indefectible, as a whole, in its support to the executive. Power as it allows at minima to elevate the gravitas of the debate and help clarify the stand of each and every stakeholder: a good example of that is the Law on the Fundamental Rights to form Trade Unions that has been pushed by José Pereira Coutinho several times and got defeated (again) in April by just 14 votes to 9. Power as it forces the government to change its order of priority when it comes to policy-making: again, I believe that it is Coutinho’s continuous drive to have an Animal Protection Law that ultimately forced the municipal affairs administration (IACM) to come up with a law that was unanimously introduced in the first reading last month, whereas the IACM had been “promising” that law for more than a decade. And finally, the capacity to “make” a law and not only to vote on or amend it epitomizes the essence of the “legislative power” of that branch of government: the Law on the Protection of Private Data, which was considered up to this summer one of the most advanced pieces of legislation when it comes to the protection of citizens’ rights, was indeed introduced in 2005 by a collective of 8 legislators, including 3 directly elected ones.
If this right to properly raise awareness, set the agenda of policy-making and legislate is forfeited, what is left then? Mere complaints that the government is not fast or good enough? If Melinda Chan champions the rights of the children so much, why doesn’t she come up with a piece of legislation herself? There are plenty of legal advisors in town to help her out—both in Portuguese and Chinese, and outside or inside the Assembly. But the problem is precisely that most of the businessmen-turned politicians conceive their role as having somewhat to do with populist brawling and badly acted moaning.
How can one otherwise explain the high-pitched whining of Mak Soi Kun regarding the noise disturbance generated by the Grand Prix whereas the Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Noise had already been voted in August, including favorably by himself? What credit can we give to legislators’ complaints about the level of execution of the government’s budget in November when the second permanent commission never found the time to review the mid-year report provided by the government in August? One of my friends who owns a pretty big business in China has the following slogan plastered on all the walls of his factory: “Winners find solutions, losers only find excuses.” No chance of losing when the game is not opened to competition.
And mind you, legislators cannot really propose laws on every single topic and issue: public expenditure, political structure or the operation of the government are expressly (and safely) out of bound. Legislators Ng Kuok Cheong and Au Kam San had thus to propose a mere debate on political reform and the implementation of universal suffrage in Macao. Expectedly, the proposal was vetoed by 27 legislators out of 33: when concerns get crucial and opinions become power, silence is then golden.
Published in Macau Daily Times, November 21 2014.
The right of initiative held by legislators is indeed true power and constitutes one of the few “actual” prerogatives that mitigates the derogatory judgment that the Macao legislature is nothing but a “rubber stamp” assembly—toothless and, above all, indefectible, as a whole, in its support to the executive. Power as it allows at minima to elevate the gravitas of the debate and help clarify the stand of each and every stakeholder: a good example of that is the Law on the Fundamental Rights to form Trade Unions that has been pushed by José Pereira Coutinho several times and got defeated (again) in April by just 14 votes to 9. Power as it forces the government to change its order of priority when it comes to policy-making: again, I believe that it is Coutinho’s continuous drive to have an Animal Protection Law that ultimately forced the municipal affairs administration (IACM) to come up with a law that was unanimously introduced in the first reading last month, whereas the IACM had been “promising” that law for more than a decade. And finally, the capacity to “make” a law and not only to vote on or amend it epitomizes the essence of the “legislative power” of that branch of government: the Law on the Protection of Private Data, which was considered up to this summer one of the most advanced pieces of legislation when it comes to the protection of citizens’ rights, was indeed introduced in 2005 by a collective of 8 legislators, including 3 directly elected ones.
If this right to properly raise awareness, set the agenda of policy-making and legislate is forfeited, what is left then? Mere complaints that the government is not fast or good enough? If Melinda Chan champions the rights of the children so much, why doesn’t she come up with a piece of legislation herself? There are plenty of legal advisors in town to help her out—both in Portuguese and Chinese, and outside or inside the Assembly. But the problem is precisely that most of the businessmen-turned politicians conceive their role as having somewhat to do with populist brawling and badly acted moaning.
How can one otherwise explain the high-pitched whining of Mak Soi Kun regarding the noise disturbance generated by the Grand Prix whereas the Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Noise had already been voted in August, including favorably by himself? What credit can we give to legislators’ complaints about the level of execution of the government’s budget in November when the second permanent commission never found the time to review the mid-year report provided by the government in August? One of my friends who owns a pretty big business in China has the following slogan plastered on all the walls of his factory: “Winners find solutions, losers only find excuses.” No chance of losing when the game is not opened to competition.
And mind you, legislators cannot really propose laws on every single topic and issue: public expenditure, political structure or the operation of the government are expressly (and safely) out of bound. Legislators Ng Kuok Cheong and Au Kam San had thus to propose a mere debate on political reform and the implementation of universal suffrage in Macao. Expectedly, the proposal was vetoed by 27 legislators out of 33: when concerns get crucial and opinions become power, silence is then golden.
Published in Macau Daily Times, November 21 2014.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Kapok: What happens in Macao… doesn’t stay in Macao
The newly revised bill soon to be introduced for a plenary vote at the Legislative Assembly that deals with the benefits granted to the Chief Executive (CE) and the principal officials (the five secretaries, the two commissioners, and the heads of the police and customs) upon leaving their office is creating quite a stir in the community and beyond. The main arguments of the opponents of the bill revolve around three sets of questions: its adequacy with the Basic Law; the amount of these benefits; and issues pertaining to procedural decision-making—in plain English, the absence of a public consultation regarding the matter. But the dispute has now spread beyond the legislative hemicycle: a petition asking for citizens to express their disagreement is claiming several thousand signatures; a Facebook page adorned with a picture of a pig and entitled “Greedy officials’ severance benefits are really excessive” has attracted hundreds of postings, close to 1,500 Likes and been shared more than 1,100 times; and the news has appeared and even made the front page, on May 21st, of the most widely-read Chinese newspaper in Hong Kong, the reputedly pro-Beijing leftist and yet grassroots-oriented Oriental Daily News—one of the titles raising the question whether Macao legislators had paved the way for the creation of a “third system”.
As far as the Basic Law is concerned, the main squabble has to do with the article related to the criminal immunity of the CE, also encapsulated in the bill, and the fact that this would contradict the principle of equality among citizens enshrined in our mini-constitution, especially because the “presidential immunity” that exists in many a place precisely concerns heads of state or prime ministers, whereas the CE can merely be considered has a “super province governor”. Yet, I beg to disagree: one cannot advocate the uniqueness of the second system all year long, and nevertheless diminish the status of the CE: our CE acts and symbolizes our whole political community, and the Basic Law is our constitution. What is missing though are possible derogations in order to waive this immunity, especially vested in the legislature, in case the CE commits acts that can be construed as incompatible with his responsibilities.
In principle, I personally believe and this is the case in many polities around the world, that the highest authority of a community should be entitled to life-long benefits upon retirement from official duty, at least for the sake of integrity and independence of the person who has embodied the whole community, and ultimately because he or she will never cease to represent this community. All benefits in nature (a car with a driver, a guard and an office) seem logical, and of course a revenue has to be included. What has now been decided, retroactively up to the year 2000, is to provide a revenue equivalent to 70% of the CE's monthly remuneration, and this for as long as he or she does not receive a salary from private employment. This corresponds to about MOP189,000 per month—a pretty comfy retirement scheme (a former French president, by comparison, makes MOP57,000 a month). Principal officials would get a one-time lump sum as severance benefit equivalent to 30% of a monthly salary times the number of months in service if not returning to the public sector and only 14% if returning to the public sector. Therefore, a secretary who has served ten years would receive MOP6,743,000 upon leaving office if not returning to the public sector—this is equivalent to 3 years of full salary, whereas, again in France, a former minister will only collect his full salary for 6 months. The amounts are thus pretty impressive, and the timing of the law quite tactless, as the salaries of the CE and principal officials have just increased by 10% in January and the whole administration is lined-up for an important reshuffle at the end of the year.
Would a public consultation help quiet down a growing public anxiety, as advocated by opposition legislators? Possibly, as the matter would at least be opened for discussion. But most surely, what would make a difference is if the president of the legislative commission responsible for the bill could come up with a better explanation than the one openly admitting that amounts and percentages were decided in a “non-scientific” way and because they seemed right. What would also help is if a CE-picked legislator would refrain from declaring that the principal officials even deserve “50%”, instead of the 30% already bumped up from the original 14%. Small circle politics has to be played with sophistication if it vies to elude embarrassment.
Published in Macau Daily Times, May 26th 2014
As far as the Basic Law is concerned, the main squabble has to do with the article related to the criminal immunity of the CE, also encapsulated in the bill, and the fact that this would contradict the principle of equality among citizens enshrined in our mini-constitution, especially because the “presidential immunity” that exists in many a place precisely concerns heads of state or prime ministers, whereas the CE can merely be considered has a “super province governor”. Yet, I beg to disagree: one cannot advocate the uniqueness of the second system all year long, and nevertheless diminish the status of the CE: our CE acts and symbolizes our whole political community, and the Basic Law is our constitution. What is missing though are possible derogations in order to waive this immunity, especially vested in the legislature, in case the CE commits acts that can be construed as incompatible with his responsibilities.
In principle, I personally believe and this is the case in many polities around the world, that the highest authority of a community should be entitled to life-long benefits upon retirement from official duty, at least for the sake of integrity and independence of the person who has embodied the whole community, and ultimately because he or she will never cease to represent this community. All benefits in nature (a car with a driver, a guard and an office) seem logical, and of course a revenue has to be included. What has now been decided, retroactively up to the year 2000, is to provide a revenue equivalent to 70% of the CE's monthly remuneration, and this for as long as he or she does not receive a salary from private employment. This corresponds to about MOP189,000 per month—a pretty comfy retirement scheme (a former French president, by comparison, makes MOP57,000 a month). Principal officials would get a one-time lump sum as severance benefit equivalent to 30% of a monthly salary times the number of months in service if not returning to the public sector and only 14% if returning to the public sector. Therefore, a secretary who has served ten years would receive MOP6,743,000 upon leaving office if not returning to the public sector—this is equivalent to 3 years of full salary, whereas, again in France, a former minister will only collect his full salary for 6 months. The amounts are thus pretty impressive, and the timing of the law quite tactless, as the salaries of the CE and principal officials have just increased by 10% in January and the whole administration is lined-up for an important reshuffle at the end of the year.
Would a public consultation help quiet down a growing public anxiety, as advocated by opposition legislators? Possibly, as the matter would at least be opened for discussion. But most surely, what would make a difference is if the president of the legislative commission responsible for the bill could come up with a better explanation than the one openly admitting that amounts and percentages were decided in a “non-scientific” way and because they seemed right. What would also help is if a CE-picked legislator would refrain from declaring that the principal officials even deserve “50%”, instead of the 30% already bumped up from the original 14%. Small circle politics has to be played with sophistication if it vies to elude embarrassment.
Published in Macau Daily Times, May 26th 2014
Friday, March 07, 2014
Kapok: What happens in…
As is often the case with sayings, their actual meaning is commonly debatable and easily twisted by the interest and the context of the moment. Such is the case with “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”, that pulls together two sets of meanings. On the one hand, related to permissiveness and secrecy—you can engage in anything borderline in Vegas, but whatever you do out there will not spill over Vegas’s vicinity—and on the other, connected to absolute otherness—this is only possible in Vegas. Apart from the fact that this sin-charged marketing motto strikes a particular cord for us in Macao, this is the expression that popped into my mind while reading reports about recent declarations made in Beijing by Peter Lee Ka-kit, Hong Kong-based Henderson Land Development’s vice chairman, in which he stated that “polls” conducted by University of Hong Kong’s Public Opinion Programme were “biased” against the pro-establishment/pro-Beijing camp in the SAR. He went on namely to target the programme’s director, Robert Chung, by questioning the scientific character of the polls and came up with a “pragmatic” solution according to which a selected few trade associations, naturally pro-establishment, would start funding alternative polls that would be conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the two competitors of Mr. Chung’s institution among the top tier universities in our sister SAR. Very pragmatic indeed, as any businessman should be: if you are not happy with a supplier, just go to another one!
These remarks were made in Beijing during a meeting held on the fringe of the annual ten-day-long annual full session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) between delegates from Hong Kong and Macao to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), of which Peter Lee is a member of the standing committee, and NPC chairman Zhang Dejiang. Let’s just recall that this annual meeting of the NPC is the only moment of the year when the supervisory power of this otherwise rubber-stamp assembly can somehow frailly glow—the government’s budget is always approved, but sometimes only by 80% of the members!—and that the CPPCC, in itself a purely advisory body, is supposed to help engage in “political consultation” with and perform “democratic supervision” of the Communist Party. In theory, members of the CPPCC can thus be expected to display some kind of innovative thinking that can help the Party better itself. In practice, it is far too often the occasion for prominent exemplary citizens to exhibit their absolute submission to the current Party line. Journalists in Beijing noted that Peter Lee’s remarks along with the ones made by another tycoon’s progeny, Victor Li Tzar-kuoi (son of Asia’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, and also a CPPCC standing committee member) characterizing the Occupy Central movement as being contrary to Hong Kong’s core values, were made just hours after a high-level official from the central government liaison office had urged Hong Kong members of the CPPCC to speak more openly against Occupy Central.
That leads me back to my saying, this time with a local flavor: let’s hope that what happens in Beijing stays in Beijing, even though this doesn’t bode well for much needed political reforms in the first system. But can it really be so? What is there to gain, apart from radicalization, in adding worries over academic freedom to nagging questioning about threats to the freedom of the press in our neighboring SAR? And then, will what happens in Hong Kong stay in Hong Kong? On one side, we have businessmen suggesting the government “dissolve the people and elect another,” to echo Bertold Brecht’s famous verse, and on the other side we are expected to remain impervious to menaces growing on our doorstep. But of course, in Macao, we seem to be content with the simple fact that Mr Chui has finally ended the excruciating speculations about his candidacy for a second mandate and we have our own businessmen suggesting that legislators should simply forfeit their right to legislative initiative. Nothing to worry about, really.
Published in Macau Daily Times, March 7 2014
These remarks were made in Beijing during a meeting held on the fringe of the annual ten-day-long annual full session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) between delegates from Hong Kong and Macao to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), of which Peter Lee is a member of the standing committee, and NPC chairman Zhang Dejiang. Let’s just recall that this annual meeting of the NPC is the only moment of the year when the supervisory power of this otherwise rubber-stamp assembly can somehow frailly glow—the government’s budget is always approved, but sometimes only by 80% of the members!—and that the CPPCC, in itself a purely advisory body, is supposed to help engage in “political consultation” with and perform “democratic supervision” of the Communist Party. In theory, members of the CPPCC can thus be expected to display some kind of innovative thinking that can help the Party better itself. In practice, it is far too often the occasion for prominent exemplary citizens to exhibit their absolute submission to the current Party line. Journalists in Beijing noted that Peter Lee’s remarks along with the ones made by another tycoon’s progeny, Victor Li Tzar-kuoi (son of Asia’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, and also a CPPCC standing committee member) characterizing the Occupy Central movement as being contrary to Hong Kong’s core values, were made just hours after a high-level official from the central government liaison office had urged Hong Kong members of the CPPCC to speak more openly against Occupy Central.
That leads me back to my saying, this time with a local flavor: let’s hope that what happens in Beijing stays in Beijing, even though this doesn’t bode well for much needed political reforms in the first system. But can it really be so? What is there to gain, apart from radicalization, in adding worries over academic freedom to nagging questioning about threats to the freedom of the press in our neighboring SAR? And then, will what happens in Hong Kong stay in Hong Kong? On one side, we have businessmen suggesting the government “dissolve the people and elect another,” to echo Bertold Brecht’s famous verse, and on the other side we are expected to remain impervious to menaces growing on our doorstep. But of course, in Macao, we seem to be content with the simple fact that Mr Chui has finally ended the excruciating speculations about his candidacy for a second mandate and we have our own businessmen suggesting that legislators should simply forfeit their right to legislative initiative. Nothing to worry about, really.
Published in Macau Daily Times, March 7 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
Kapok: Trust me if you can
With the cold front coming from the north, the sudden drop in temperature “holding” ground level emissions down and excessive production of fine particulates of 2.5 micrometres—the very lethal tiny bits that get deep in your lungs and are universally recognized, even by CCTV, to be a major cause in the rise of lung and cardio-vascular diseases in our modern society—, I was poised to write about the past-the-looming calamity of air pollution in Macao.
Readings in the past week were far above the 25-35 micrograms per cubic metre average daily threshold flagged by international as well as Chinese regulators: on February 13, the daily average was in the 70 µgrams/m3 and on the 17, there were peaks in the 120 µgrams/m3! We are still quite far from the 347 µgrams/m3 recorded in Beijing yesterday by the American embassy, characterizing the air in the Chinese capital as “hazardous”, but concern is salient, measurable, and cars appear to hold a significant part of the responsibility if the 20-30% drop observed after midnight and up to 8 a.m. is to be relied upon.
It is high time we move from a rather silly Air-Quality-cum-Index smiley to a more owe-inspiring Air Quality Health Index, thus indicating the short-term health risks, just like Hong Kong, inspired by Canada, did last December. This would be all the fairer to Macao as our SAR actually started recording levels of fine particulates before its Pearl River neighbor!
But fine particulates are not the only thing polluting our atmosphere, unfortunately, and these other factors are more political than scientific in nature—and yet translate into mounting and highly visible concerns as well.
First, we have a president of the Legislative Assembly, Mr Ho Iat Seng, deploring on the sidelines of a Spring festival lunch the limitations of his fellow legislators because of their lack of legal training and thus questioning their capacity to grasp the “goals” of policy-making deriving from their lack of “knowledge” and possibly some “confusion” regarding their intended role—a passing comment rather amusing regarding possible conflict of interests when one thinks that Mr Ho is concurrently the only member from Macao of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in Beijing. Going one step further during the same agapes, Mr Chan Chak Mo, president of the second standing committee of the Assembly, even suggested that the legislators should refrain from drafting “projects” of law and let the government exclusively make law “proposals”, that would then of course be duly discussed by legislators.
If individual legislators can always be reminded of their shortcomings during plenary sessions—especially now that debates are publicly broadcasted—it is neither up to Mr Ho or Mr Chan to discuss the “legitimacy” of assemblymen and their “sacred” right of legislative initiative: none of these two august legislators is elected through universal suffrage and the Basic Law, and only it, can prescribe what is the duty of a legislator (art. 75 in that particular case). In Europe, since the Treaty of Lisbon (2009), there is such a thing called the European Citizens’ Initiative, and thus initiative of a legal act rests also directly with the citizens: do citizens need all to be trained in law? Legislative duty, unfortunately, also implies design: if Mr Chan does not feel up to the task, maybe he should either resign or hire more legal advisers. Always hiding behind the necessity for these laws to be the product of “public consultations” is a farce: governing is deciding and leading, not following. Sometimes one has actually to explain to the community why decisions need to be made even at the risk of disquieting the public mood. But in Macao, the air is too polluted by the Lao Si Lo syndrome: everybody claims that he or she “can absolutely face the public”, and then no one actually does…
Published in Macau Daily Times, February 21 2014
Friday, February 07, 2014
Kapok: Progress vs. growth
Ask any resident in Macao and you will probably get the same answer: Chinese New Year has become a real nuisance for our territory, mainly because of the massive arrival of tourists, all channeled along the “axis of consumption” in the city center—and here I am not even plowing into the officially orchestrated permit to pollute the air and the ears of passers-by in the form of a pyrotechnic extravaganza that is truly scaring the dead as well as the living!
According to the Public Security Police, 915,275 visitors entered Macau between January 31 and February 5, 73% of whom came from the mainland. Overall, that means that one and a half times the total population of Macao entered the territory in less than a week, or close to a third stepped in every single day. Extrapolating from the figures of 2013 (altogether 29.3 million visitors for the whole year), 51% of this massive influx consists of day-trippers: no wonder then that the public transport system is overloaded and the streets jammed when those hasty sightseers have to be carried back to the border-gate on the same day!
Here and there, I have been reading several articulated criticisms regarding this free-flow of tourists into Macao that emphasise the “unsustainability” of the whole situation.
To the drastic measures oriented-ones who remark that in any case more than 70% of Macau’s gambling revenue is derived from VIP tables and that high-rollers tend to deliberately avoid Chinese New Year for the annoyances it brings I say: yes, sure, and yet SMEs are not to be forgotten, and here we are talking about far more than just the over-inflated cosmetics, dry cakes, beef jerky and milk powder outlets. Countless small restaurants and shops actually benefit from the pendulum-like daily invasion, and knowing the importance of “gift-giving” in Chinese culture, I am pretty sure that there is even more room for growth in this area. Of course, that means that some of the heavily visited spots should be “reserved” or “pre-empted” by the government for these small operations to obtain without having to pay hefty rent prices—a preemption based on the multi-pronged sustainability of the project more than the nationality of the operator.
Clearly put, the ousting of the Cultural Club on San Ma Lo in January or the vacating at the end of 2013 of the Yellow House next to St Paul’s Ruins to make way for the global fashion brand Forever 21 should have been prevented—in the latter case, the Yellow House is owned by Future Bright Holdings, the company managed by legislator Chan Chak Mo, who is supposedly representing the “cultural sector” in the Legislative Assembly!
The same line of reasoning goes for those who believe that this massive crowd should be funnelled exclusively, or at least mostly, to the Cotai strip: not only will it deprive SMEs of their fair share of the juicy pie, but it will also constitute a missed-opportunity for mass education as to how and why Macao is different from the rest of China—entertainment and the epitome of fake, however professional they are, will never replace culture… it’s like saying “don’t go to Boston if you’ve been to Vegas”!
To those who, on the contrary, believe that things should be left to market forces and that ultimately tourists will get fed-up of feeling like subway customers at rush-hour in the open air and will thus come up with their own corrective measures, I say: you have no idea what human nature can endure and for how long it can do so in a nation that has been deprived of holidays for 50 years… visit the Yellow Mountain in Anhui province on any given day, and you will get my meaning!
Something needs to be done, that’s for certain, and all the touristic places in the world are faced with the same challenges—83 million Chinese tourists went abroad in 2012, and that number is set to reach 200 million by 2020. Spreading the visitors out across the year and thus imposing quotas is inescapable. It is high time that our GDP indicator be coupled with a Genuine Progress indicator, taking into account social and environmental costs.
If Bhutan can design and fare well in a Gross National Happiness indicator while still controlling the number of entries to its tiny and modest kingdom, so why can’t Macao, cash-ridden as it is?
Published in Macau Daily Times, February 7th 2014
According to the Public Security Police, 915,275 visitors entered Macau between January 31 and February 5, 73% of whom came from the mainland. Overall, that means that one and a half times the total population of Macao entered the territory in less than a week, or close to a third stepped in every single day. Extrapolating from the figures of 2013 (altogether 29.3 million visitors for the whole year), 51% of this massive influx consists of day-trippers: no wonder then that the public transport system is overloaded and the streets jammed when those hasty sightseers have to be carried back to the border-gate on the same day!
Here and there, I have been reading several articulated criticisms regarding this free-flow of tourists into Macao that emphasise the “unsustainability” of the whole situation.
To the drastic measures oriented-ones who remark that in any case more than 70% of Macau’s gambling revenue is derived from VIP tables and that high-rollers tend to deliberately avoid Chinese New Year for the annoyances it brings I say: yes, sure, and yet SMEs are not to be forgotten, and here we are talking about far more than just the over-inflated cosmetics, dry cakes, beef jerky and milk powder outlets. Countless small restaurants and shops actually benefit from the pendulum-like daily invasion, and knowing the importance of “gift-giving” in Chinese culture, I am pretty sure that there is even more room for growth in this area. Of course, that means that some of the heavily visited spots should be “reserved” or “pre-empted” by the government for these small operations to obtain without having to pay hefty rent prices—a preemption based on the multi-pronged sustainability of the project more than the nationality of the operator.
Clearly put, the ousting of the Cultural Club on San Ma Lo in January or the vacating at the end of 2013 of the Yellow House next to St Paul’s Ruins to make way for the global fashion brand Forever 21 should have been prevented—in the latter case, the Yellow House is owned by Future Bright Holdings, the company managed by legislator Chan Chak Mo, who is supposedly representing the “cultural sector” in the Legislative Assembly!
The same line of reasoning goes for those who believe that this massive crowd should be funnelled exclusively, or at least mostly, to the Cotai strip: not only will it deprive SMEs of their fair share of the juicy pie, but it will also constitute a missed-opportunity for mass education as to how and why Macao is different from the rest of China—entertainment and the epitome of fake, however professional they are, will never replace culture… it’s like saying “don’t go to Boston if you’ve been to Vegas”!
To those who, on the contrary, believe that things should be left to market forces and that ultimately tourists will get fed-up of feeling like subway customers at rush-hour in the open air and will thus come up with their own corrective measures, I say: you have no idea what human nature can endure and for how long it can do so in a nation that has been deprived of holidays for 50 years… visit the Yellow Mountain in Anhui province on any given day, and you will get my meaning!
Something needs to be done, that’s for certain, and all the touristic places in the world are faced with the same challenges—83 million Chinese tourists went abroad in 2012, and that number is set to reach 200 million by 2020. Spreading the visitors out across the year and thus imposing quotas is inescapable. It is high time that our GDP indicator be coupled with a Genuine Progress indicator, taking into account social and environmental costs.
If Bhutan can design and fare well in a Gross National Happiness indicator while still controlling the number of entries to its tiny and modest kingdom, so why can’t Macao, cash-ridden as it is?
Published in Macau Daily Times, February 7th 2014
Friday, September 27, 2013
Kapok: NIMBY, Macao style
Back in November 2010, Chief Executive Chui Sai On’s intent was clear and the direction chosen unhindered: “Regarding the development of tourism products, after heeding public opinion, and conducting analyses and assessments, the Government proposes an underground mall at Sai Van Lake Square as a trial location for developing a souvenir shopping complex and night market. This will showcase Macao cuisine and delicacies, and will become an integrated tourism project, after upgrading the relevant facilities through an open bidding process.” Of course, not everything went as planned.
First, the initial consultation for the project of a Sai Van lake permanent night market only occurred in November 2011. In the meantime, due processes for “public consultations”, the new fad in benevolent and opinion-led governance in lieu of democratic procedures, had changed: one round of public consultation would not be enough anymore, and a second round taking into account the lessons learnt from the first one would have to be organized. In that particular case, we were lucky rules had changed and government agencies had been slow in putting Mr Chui’s candid words into practice. The first public consultation was not only a disaster, but also marred by irregularities and opacity. Depending on who was doing the counting, opinions gathered ranged from a few dozen up to a maximum of 180, and only 8 such opinions had disapproved of the plan… But these results, without further comments, were only made public in October 2012(!), whereas regulations for public consultations state that it should take no more than 180 days after completion of the process.
Dissent and protest — too bad for consensus building — were soon to be heard: residents from the area started petitioning; concerned groups dealing with environmental and livelihood issues went marching and cycling around the lake, and even business interests made it clear as early as November 2012 that the whole project was plain wrong, both in intent and sustainability. Interestingly enough, David Chow Kam Fai, husband of legislator Melinda Chan Mei Yi and Macau Legend Development chief executive, expressed in a long op-ed published in the very conservative Macau Daily News his doubts about the “free market” side of the “open bidding process” — being the CEO of Fisherman’s Wharf Investment Ltd. might have made Mr. Chow pretty perceptive of the issue lying beneath less than fair competition. In reality, apart from the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau that had been entrusted with the project, only one public figure openly continued to support the scheme: legislator Chan Chak Mo. Incidentally representing the cultural sector in the Assembly, but mostly his own interests as the executive director of restaurant operator Future Bright Holdings Ltd, Mo nonetheless finds time to be the president of the Association of Macao Restaurant Merchants, the main organizer of the yearly Food Festival since 2001 precisely set on the banks of the… Sai Van lake!
So, a second consultation round was organized from December 2012 to March 2013. The press had already echoed vociferous sessions held with the general public, and even raucous exchanges with associations convened in closed-door meetings, including the usually pro-government General Union of the Neighborhood Associations and the Federation of Trade Unions that had expressed either a resolute opposition or suggested a relocation and a downsizing of the whole plan. But the official results of that consultation that came out on September 19 surpassed all expectations. More than 1,100 opinions were collected and an additional survey was conducted over the phone by the University of Macao with 1,529 respondents to envision what kind of facilities could be developed around the lake: overall, the initial night market project freely inspired by Clark Quay in Singapore and Tamsui night market in northern Taiwan was rejected by more than 70% of the population, and if a good 60% of the people surveyed over the phone want more facilities, they believe these should be more in line with green paths and walking/jogging tracks. From the “positioning”, the project itself to the localization, all three were heavily rejected: could this be the start of a “Not-In-My-Backyard” movement, with Macanese characteristics?
Published in Macau Daily Times, September 27th 2013
First, the initial consultation for the project of a Sai Van lake permanent night market only occurred in November 2011. In the meantime, due processes for “public consultations”, the new fad in benevolent and opinion-led governance in lieu of democratic procedures, had changed: one round of public consultation would not be enough anymore, and a second round taking into account the lessons learnt from the first one would have to be organized. In that particular case, we were lucky rules had changed and government agencies had been slow in putting Mr Chui’s candid words into practice. The first public consultation was not only a disaster, but also marred by irregularities and opacity. Depending on who was doing the counting, opinions gathered ranged from a few dozen up to a maximum of 180, and only 8 such opinions had disapproved of the plan… But these results, without further comments, were only made public in October 2012(!), whereas regulations for public consultations state that it should take no more than 180 days after completion of the process.
Dissent and protest — too bad for consensus building — were soon to be heard: residents from the area started petitioning; concerned groups dealing with environmental and livelihood issues went marching and cycling around the lake, and even business interests made it clear as early as November 2012 that the whole project was plain wrong, both in intent and sustainability. Interestingly enough, David Chow Kam Fai, husband of legislator Melinda Chan Mei Yi and Macau Legend Development chief executive, expressed in a long op-ed published in the very conservative Macau Daily News his doubts about the “free market” side of the “open bidding process” — being the CEO of Fisherman’s Wharf Investment Ltd. might have made Mr. Chow pretty perceptive of the issue lying beneath less than fair competition. In reality, apart from the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau that had been entrusted with the project, only one public figure openly continued to support the scheme: legislator Chan Chak Mo. Incidentally representing the cultural sector in the Assembly, but mostly his own interests as the executive director of restaurant operator Future Bright Holdings Ltd, Mo nonetheless finds time to be the president of the Association of Macao Restaurant Merchants, the main organizer of the yearly Food Festival since 2001 precisely set on the banks of the… Sai Van lake!
So, a second consultation round was organized from December 2012 to March 2013. The press had already echoed vociferous sessions held with the general public, and even raucous exchanges with associations convened in closed-door meetings, including the usually pro-government General Union of the Neighborhood Associations and the Federation of Trade Unions that had expressed either a resolute opposition or suggested a relocation and a downsizing of the whole plan. But the official results of that consultation that came out on September 19 surpassed all expectations. More than 1,100 opinions were collected and an additional survey was conducted over the phone by the University of Macao with 1,529 respondents to envision what kind of facilities could be developed around the lake: overall, the initial night market project freely inspired by Clark Quay in Singapore and Tamsui night market in northern Taiwan was rejected by more than 70% of the population, and if a good 60% of the people surveyed over the phone want more facilities, they believe these should be more in line with green paths and walking/jogging tracks. From the “positioning”, the project itself to the localization, all three were heavily rejected: could this be the start of a “Not-In-My-Backyard” movement, with Macanese characteristics?
Published in Macau Daily Times, September 27th 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Kapok: Look who’s talking!
Although I
would not challenge being characterized as a “tree-hugger”, I would not
consider myself an “animal lover”. For me, dogs are all about unpleasant
dribbling, offensive wet dog smell and untimely walks in the woods for
not-so-hygienic unloading. But it is one thing to show no great empathy for
pets, it is an entirely different matter not to support legal provisions to put
an end to cruelty towards animals. The former has to do with my own personal
inclinations, the latter with the degree of advancement of a civilization.
There are
many interesting aspects to the project of law that was introduced by José
Pereira Coutinho, which pertains to the “Legal status and protection of animals”. This was rebuked in a plenary session of the Macao Legislative
Assembly on April 22nd.
It is
important to note that it was a project of law (initiated by legislators, in
this case only one), which is not to be confused with a law proposal (initiated
by the government). Contrary to what is commonly heard, a few projects
initiated by legislators have successfully been made into laws. For example, the
very comprehensive Personal Data Protection Law that was passed in 2005 is the
most well known, but it is not unique. Other examples include the Law requiring
the systematic advice of a lawyer in judicial procedures, or the Law regulating
Internet Cafés.
These laws
are the highest testimonies of the revered principle of the separation of powers,
which is enshrined in Macao's Basic Law. Legislator Coutinho clearly displays
political motivation when he introduced six laws in a single week, but contrary
to what Legislator Chan Chak Mo has argued, that is to say “mere politicking” by
Coutinho in an election year, Coutinho’s actions clearly indicate that some
legislators are actually doing their job. In the end, just as “some animals are
more equal than others”, some legislators are indeed, more legitimate than
others.
The project
of law was voted down in its first stage, during the first reading in plenary
session. The legislators had plenty of time to carefully examine the 30
articles of the law and the notes that accompanied it, as it was introduced in
February, some two months before last Monday’s vote. But the project never made
it beyond the political initiative of its introduction and will never be
discussed in a permanent commission.
Those who
either abstained or opposed gave several reasons. Some argued that the project
was not precise enough: was it about domestic animals, or animals at large?
Could we still enjoy eating ducks and chicken after the law would be passed? Article
14 of the project is very clear about that, just like the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Ordinance passed in 2006 in Hong Kong: what is to be prevented and
punished is cruelty to animals, including in the slaughtering process. But most of the
critics have concentrated on the supposed untimeliness of the project as it was
released only four months before the end of the legislative session. However, one
could argue that almost half of the 2012/2013 session still remains and that
the Assembly record for law passing ranges from 6 to 27 laws passed in a single
session. Coincidentally, the most vocal opponent regarding “timing” was
legislator Vitor Cheung Lup Kwan, who holds the record amongst all legislators
for lowest attendance to plenary sessions during the two previous terms in 2011
and 2012. Being a legislator is a full time job!
In the end 4
voted in favor, 9 abstained and 9 opposed, totaling 22 out of 29. Why were
seven legislators missing? Why was the legislator, who is closest to the
company that runs the infamous Canidrome of Macau (see here for local news and here for international coverage), absent from the vote? Untimely
questions maybe?
Published in Macau Daily Times, April 26 2013.
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