Addressing yesterday’s Q&A session in the legislature’s hemicycle, Secretary for Administration and Justice Sonia Chan Hoi Fan revealed that the government has received 168 self-recommendations for membership of the consultative committee of the city’s future municipal organisation.
Considering that the committee’s maximum membership stands at 25, there are 6.7 applicants for each available seat.
Chan made the remarks when answering a question from appointed lawmaker Ma Chi Seng, on the first day of the two-day Q&A session about her portfolio’s policy guidelines for next year.
Chan and several other senior officials of her portfolio attended yesterday’s plenum in the chamber.
The new municipal organisation will be established on January 1 next year when the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (IACM) will be abolished.
The Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau said in a statement on October 2 that those who want to recommend themselves, or recommend other people, for membership of the municipal organisation’s consultative committee could submit their applications from October 3 until November 1.
The Legislative Assembly (AL) passed the outline of a government-initiated bill on the establishment of a non-political
municipal organisation in Macau in April. Following a review by the legislature’s 2nd Standing Committee, the bill was passed by a plenary session in its final articleby- article vote in July. The law on the new municipal entity was promulgated in the Official Gazette (BO) in early August.
According to the law, the new municipal organisation is named “Municipal Affairs Institute” (IAM) when directly translated from the Chinese and Portuguese. Its future name in English is still to be announced by the government.
The local government’s proposal to establish a non-political municipal organisation is based on Section 5 of Chapter 4 of the Macau Basic La which calls for the establishment of “municipal organisations which are not organs of political power”.
The new law states that the municipal organisation consists of an administrative committee and a consultative committee tasked with providing municipal services and advising the government on the services respectively. The new law also states that the administrative committee consists of no more than eight members, while the maximum number of members of the consultative committee is 25.
According to the law on the new municipal body, all members of the two committees under the municipal organisation are to be appointed by the chief executive. Activists and some lawmakers have criticised the government for ruling out the possibility for the members of the municipal organisation’s consultative committee to be elected by popular vote. The government insists that the members of the municipal organisation cannot be elected, based on the spirit of the respective articles of the Macau Basic Law.
Secretary for Administration and Justice Sonia Chan Hoi Fan (centre) addresses yesterday’s plenary session in the legislature’s hemicycle, accompanied by her chief-of-cabinet Iao Man Leng (left) and Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP) Director Kou Peng Kuan. Photo: Secretariat for Administration and Justice (GSAJ)
