Secretary for Administration and Justice André Cheong Weng Chon, who is also the spokesman for the government’s top advisory Executive Council, has announced that the government will start charging fees for civil service admission examinations from next month.
The policy secretary said that the fees are not meant to cover the government’s cost of running admission examinations to recruit public servants, but instead aim to tackle the issue of low attendance rates in public servant recruitment examinations.
Addressing a press conference at Government Headquarters on Friday, Cheong said that the government has finished drafting amendments to the existing administrative regulation (by-law) on its public servant recruitment system, which has been in force since 2016.
The drafted amendments will take effect on Thursday next week, July 1.
Government-drafted by-laws, officially known as administrative regulations, do not require the legislature’s approval.
Cheong said that the amended public servant recruitment system will require civil service admission examination applicants to pay a registration fee, so as to discourage residents from “casually” applying to take public servant recruitment examinations but not attending the examinations, with the aim of avoiding the waste of resources.
According to Cheong, those who have been officially confirmed by the Social Welfare Bureau (IAS) as having financial difficulties will be exempted from paying the registration fees.
Should the respective government entities cancel their public servant recruitment examinations, the applicants will have the registration fees refunded, Cheong said.
Cheong underlined that the registration fees are not meant to “offset” the government’s cost of organising civil service admission examinations, but to ensure that only those who are really interested in competing with other candidates apply to take an examination.
Fee still to be fixed
Cheong said that he “personally thinks” that the examination fee should be 300 patacas. But he was quick to add that the exact amount will be determined by the chief executive in an executive order.
Cheong noted that each civil service admission examination normally requires the involvement of thousands of civil servants, which involves a “huge” cost, because of which, he said, a fee of several hundred patacas paid by each applicant would certainly not offset the government’s cost of running the examination.
Secretary for Administration and Justice André Cheong Weng Chon (left) and Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP) Director Kou Peng Kuan address Friday’s Executive Council press conference at Government Headquarters about the government’s amended public servant recruitment system. Courtesy: TDM
