Cemetery probe not closed yet

The cemetery probe involving secretary for Administration and Justice, Florinda Chan, is not closed yet, the Macau prosecutor-general said yesterday.
A report released in September by the Commission against Corruption said the former provisional city hall had breached the law. The graft watchdog said that an illegal cemetery application regulation seemed “tailor made” to benefit one of Chan’s legal advisors.
The document revealed there were ongoing criminal investigations over this case, including a public servant charged with refusal to cooperate with the CCAC probe.
“In the first half of this year there will be results,” Ho Chio Meng said yesterday.
A government working-group found in December last year that Chan was not accountable for the flaws found in the approval of cemetery applications, as well as the former provisional city hall’s president José Sales Marques.
In December 2001, just two weeks ahead of being replaced by the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau – the former provisional city hall approved 10 applications that had been filed long before the regulation was drawn up.
One of them was the grave of the mother of one of Chan’s legal advisors, surnamed Cheang. The case came to public light after one of the applicants who saw its request denied lodged a complaint with the Public Prosecutions’ Office.

A.L.