Secretary for Transport and Public Works Raimundo do Rosário has said that the Lands, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT) will set up an electrical and mechanical department later this year which will oversee the safety of the city’s lifts, escalators, travellators and amusement rides.
According to Rosário, the new department will be set up by transferring a number of engineers from existing departments in the bureau and recruiting several new engineers. He also said that the government will carry out training for engineers working in the government so that they would be qualified to work in the new electrical and mechanical department in the future.
The policy secretary has also said that the government plans to carry out a public consultation in the first half of this year on the drafting of a bill regulating the safety of lifts, escalators and travellators.
Rosário made the remarks when replying to an oral interpellation by directly-elected lawmaker-cum-civic leader Alan Ho Ion Sang during Friday’s plenary session in the legislature’s hemicycle.
Ho noted that Macau currently does not have any specific legislation regulating lifts, escalators, gas appliances and various other mechanical and electrical facilities. He urged the government to reveal its timetables as to when a new unit supervising the facilities will be set up in the bureau and when the government will complete drafting a bill regulating the equipment.
Observers have noted that the Macau government does not have any specific entity overseeing mechanical and electrical equipment, while in Hong Kong the matter is supervised by its government’s Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) – which is well known by many residents in Macau.
The government first revealed last year that the Lands, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT) would set up an electrical and mechanical department.
Replying to Ho’s oral interpellation on Friday, Rosário pledged that the bureau will set up an electrical and mechanical department later this year.
But Rosário was quick to add that Macau’s civil society could not have “too high expectations” for the new electrical and mechanical department as it would not oversee every kind of mechanical and electrical facility due to the bureau’s “financial constraints”. The policy secretary said that initially after its establishment, the new department would only supervise lifts, escalators, travellators and amusement rides.
When asked by Ho whether the new electrical and mechanical department will also supervise gas appliances such as water heaters and gas stoves, Rosário ruled it out, saying that it would be impossible for the new department to oversee all kinds of mechanical and electrical equipment, like the Hong Kong government’s Electrical and Mechanical Services Department, in the near future after its setting-up. The policy secretary said that due to its “financial constraints”, the bureau would only be able to recruit a “limited” number of new staff for the new department, in which case the government would also transfer a number of engineers from existing departments in the bureau as well as other bureaus to the new electrical and mechanical department.
Also addressing Friday’s plenary session, DSSOPT Director Chan Pou Ha said that there were 7,577 lifts, 1,634 escalators and 56 travellators in the city as of December. Chan also said that her bureau has completed drafting the public consultation document on the lift, escalator and travellator bill.
