Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng has extended his holiday from Saturday through Monday next week, according to an executive order published in the Official Gazette (BO) on Saturday, when the Macau Government Information Bureau (GCS) also issued a statement on the matter.
The statement said that Ho “has used his vacation to undergo routine physical examinations and received necessary diagnosis and treatment. He is currently in good health”.
The bureau said that it issued the statement “in response to recent media enquiries about the chief executive’s vacation”.
According to official records, Ho’s now twice-extended holiday originally began on June 21, after which it was extended from July 4 until Friday last week. The initial holiday lasted 13 days, while the one extended on July 4 lasted 16 days. The second extension is now slated to last 10 days.
According to official records, Ho, who took office on December 20, 2019, did not take any holiday during the three-year COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 through 2022. Since assuming office, Ho took a holiday for the first time last year, for just three days at the end of April.
Ho, born in Macau in June 1957, is a former president of the Macau Legislative Assembly (AL) and an ex-deputy to the National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing where he was a member of its top Standing Committee. He was a businessman until he become Macau’s third chief executive, after Edmund Ho Hau Wah and Fernando Chui Sai On.
Informed sources have told the Post that Ho will announce his candidacy for his second and constitutionally final five-year consecutive term at the helm of the local government “soon after” the August 11 election of the Chief Executive Election Committee. Ho is known to be a “hard worker”.
Secretary for Administration and Justice André Cheong Weng Chon is acting chief executive during Ho’s leave.
Undated file photo of Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng downloaded from the Government Portal of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR)
