Lawmakers passed yesterday the outline of a government-initiated bill which proposes to establish a compulsory arbitration system to deal with disputes over water leakages in buildings.
Leakage is a sustained water flow over a long period of time that has no operational function or usage.
Secretary for Administration and Justice André Cheong Weng Chon said that with the introduction of the system, the time taken to deal with water leakages will “certainly be significantly reduced”.
He made the remarks during a plenary session yesterday afternoon in the legislature’s hemicycle.
The bill, officially known as Compulsory Arbitration System for Disputes over Water Leakages in Buildings, proposes that households affected by water leakages can initiate arbitration, and arbitrators’ decisions will make it compulsory for owners of flats where the leakages are suspected of having come from to allow professionals to enter their flats for assessment, after obtaining the assessment report compiled by the respective testing institution or professional.
The bill proposes that licensed civil engineers or related companies will be eligible to assess water leakages in buildings and then issue the respective assessment report to be used for arbitration.
Cheong said this is aimed to shorten the waiting time for the testing institution tasked with detecting buildings’ water leakages.
Cheong underlined that there are currently around 515 licensed civil engineers and around 80 related companies in Macau.
Cheong said that the Centre for the Joint Treatment of Water Leakages in Buildings – a government-run centre since 2009 – had solved 88 percent of the requests for assistance, while the remaining 12 percent of cases left unsolved were mainly due to the fact that the owners of the flats could not be found or “refused to cooperate”.
Cheong said that the mandatory arbitration system aims to solve the difficulties of entering flats suspected of being the source of the water leakages for assessment, difficulties in hiring professionals to detect the causes of the leakages, and difficulties in getting paid for the repair costs by the owners of the flats that the leakages are coming from.
The bill proposes that a decision by the arbitration institution will have the same “enforceability” as a judgement by the Court of First Instance (TJB), according to which, Cheong said, if the respective flat owner still refuses to comply with a decision by the arbitration institution that requires him or her to allow entry into his or her flat, the decision will be enforced by the court, and if necessary, even by the police.
In such cases, Cheong said that compulsory repairs can be carried out and the cost of repairs and compensation will be borne afterwards by the flat owner whose property is the source of the leakage.
Financial System Bill
Meanwhile, lawmakers yesterday also passed the outline of a government-initiated bill yesterday regulating the city’s financial system, which proposes to introduce the licensing of limited-scope banks, aka restricted licence banks.
The current decree law regulating the city’s financial system, which was promulgated in 1993, is entitled Financial System Act.
Some legislators asked the government about the different kinds of licences that will be proposed in the bill.
Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong said that the government will consider wholesale banks, retail banks and investment banks as restricted licence banks.
Lei said that as the current system is basically a full licence – currently there are 34 fully licensed banks in Macau, including sub-branches and branches, adding that given the volume of banking business in Macau, there was no need for so many full licences, but there was a need to divide them according to the market’s demand.
The bill also proposes to establish a system to issue temporary permits for trial operations of financial technology (aka fintech) projects, with the aim of promoting the application of new technology to the city’s financial businesses.
The bill also proposes to increase fines on those who receive deposits or other repayable funds from the public without official authorisation, with the aim of strengthening the government’s ability to combat illegal financial activities.
The two outlines of the bills passed today will be separately submitted to two of the legislature’s standing committees in due course for their future article-by-article debate, review and vote, after which the reviewed bill will once again be submitted to a plenary session for its final debate and vote.
Secretary for Administration and Justice André Cheong Weng Chon speaks during yesterday’s plenary session in the legislature’s hemicycle.
Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong addresses yesterday’s plenary session in the legislature’s hemicycle.
– Photo: Ginnie Liang
