Democrats pushes land grant, Assembly reforms

New Macau Association: “The Legislative Assembly can’t truly reflect people’s will, because only 12 of the 29 deputies are elected by the general public”.

The New Macau Association said in a statement yesterday that the SAR government did not learn from the Ao Man Long case but continued to abuse its discretion and damage the public interest.
The statement was released as prompted by the failure to conduct a hearing on the Galaxy Cotai land grant at the Legislative Assembly last Thursday.
The motion proposed by Au Kam San, Ng Kuok Cheong and Chan Wai Chi, who are also the association’s members, to summon specific government officials and Galaxy’s executives to explain about the land deal, was turned down as less than half of the lawmakers voted in favour of it.
The democratic association said that it was “deeply regretted” about the motion having been rejected.
“During the plenary meeting, indirectly elected and Chief Executive-appointed lawmakers made ‘strange speeches’ in order to prevent the motion from being passed. They claimed that Galaxy was not the first company to be given the same condition [to transfer land tenancy] and the land grant was legally conducted,” the statement read.
Although the Venetian was also approved to be able to transfer land tenancy to third parties back in 2007, the Galaxy land deal was “very suspicious”, the association said, since the company’s development had been on a slow pace and the government has already announced that it’s time to control the scale of the gaming industry.
The democrats also said that the huge land parcel was “beyond the company’s development plan” because the government could already “foresee” that Galaxy would require financing in a bid to raise enough fund to complete the project.
“The Land Law clearly states that land generally must be distributed through open auctions, but the SAR government under Edmund Ho had only held three auctions over the past decade, while most of the land parcels were considered ‘exceptional’ and waived from auctions, and granted at extremely low premiums lastly,” the association said.
“Even when Ao Man Long was found guilty of bribe taking and abuse of power, he could still insist that all he had done was by law,” it added.
Hence, the democrats reiterated that the plenty of room available for officials to exercise discretion at will must be questioned, and only by a hearing could public concern and doubts be cleared.
On the other hand, the New Macau Association pointed out that all the seven votes in favour of the motion came from directly elected lawmakers. While two of the directly elected lawmakers - Chan Meng Kam and Angela Leong On Kei - were absent from the plenary meeting, another two - Melinda Chan Mei Yi and Lee Chong Cheng - abstained from voting.
Mak Soi Kun was the only directly elected lawmaker voting against the motion.
“The tendency is clear. The Legislative Assembly can’t truly reflect people’s will, because only 12 of the 29 deputies are elected by the general public,” the association said.
“Indirectly elected and appointed lawmakers account for the majority, thus preventing the Assembly from exercising its function to supervise the government for the people,” it added.
Therefore, the association urged for a change in the structure of the legislature, by first abolishing the indirect election and largely cutting down Chief Executive-appointed seats, so that the Assembly could serve as a watchdog in Macau.