The Commission of Audit (CA) and the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) gave officials a rap across the knuckles in separate reports released yesterday. 

Both hard-hitting reports were submitted to Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng. 

The Commission of Audit slammed Parafuturo, a subsidiary of Macao Investment and Development (MID), a company set up by the public sector, for ignoring financial risks and failing to complete a project that involved large amounts of public money. 

According to its website, 94 percent of the initial capital of MID is owned by the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR), 3 percent by the public Commercial and Industrial Fund and 3 percent by the Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM). By the end of last year the capital had been raised six times, reaching 9.28 billion patacas. 

According to the CA report, since 2016 Parafuturo has invested 890 million patacas in a conference and training centre complex in Zhongshan, a city some 40 kilometres north of Macau in Guangdong province, that still has to get off the ground.

The auditors criticised Parafuturo for failing to carry out any preliminary studies before investing the 890 million patacas in the ill-fated project. They also slammed the company for investing 18 million patacas in a financial institution without carrying out any feasibility studies. 

Meanwhile, the CCAC report accuses the government’s Education Development Fund for a string of administrative irregularities in its granting of subsidies to more than 100 units of 70 private schools, such as a dearth of rigorous monitoring of the subsidised projects’ progress involving construction work and equipment purchases. 

The CCAC report also accuses the fund of committing administrative illegalities concerning the restitution of public funds. 

Both Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong and Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Elsie Ao Ieong U issued separate statements in response to the two reports concerning their respective portfolios, promising to remedy the situation in each case.