Priorities? Who cares!!

Tiago Azevedo

The legal aid for civil servants has been the hot topic these last weeks, with the Government taking a backwards step from its initial proposal, showing that to some extent it has listened to public opinion.
However, I wonder why the Government decided to come forward with this new law at this moment. People might say that today is just as good as any given day. And I have to agree. But what about all the other matters that are unquestionably more important to Macau? Shouldn’t they come first?
I will just name some: the land law, the urban planning law, and the domestic violence law. The latter was promised two years ago. Just to cite one example, since 2005 the domestic violence shelter, Lai Yuen, established by the Macau Women’s General Association (AGMM), has provided shelter for 247 female victims and 185 children who came with their mothers. AGMM has also found that 60 percent of its residents have repeatedly come to stay with them for up to three times.
So, most of these women have been abused more than one time and still there is no law to protect them from domestic violence. According to the Government, the draft bill is in its final amendments. However, there’s no schedule for it to be discussed in the Legislative Assembly.
But let’s go to some other examples. The year is 2008 and the Government has just announced the plan to revise the land law and the urban planning law. Two years have flown by and little has been done.
Secretary for Transport and Public Works Lau Si Io said recently that the bill to revise the land law and the urban planning draft law are expected to be presented for a public consultation at the end of 2011, and then “hopefully” to the Legislative Assembly in 2012.
But in 2008 the Administration formed an inter-governmental work group to produce the guidelines for the land law revision. A year later, it created an expert advisory council to help revise the law, based on the previous guidelines.
Yet, it is still going to take more than a year to spell out a draft bill for consultation. Meanwhile, amid the lack of updated regulation, Macau is hot again, with the city’s economy showing strong signs of recovery and with the construction and real estate sectors seemingly back on track.
Plus, there are a lot of developers waiting to see what’s the plan for the Praia Grande Bay and for the new land reclamation projects. And as infrastructure projects such as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and the light rail system get underway Macau shows that is missing a strategic plan.
Without a clear plan it’s normal to see huge mistakes being made. Have you noticed the mastodon building in Barra, just near the A-Ma Temple? For sure if you crossed the Sai Van bridge from Taipa to Macau you’ve noticed there’s a building that stands out more than the Penha Church. How was it possible to approve the construction of some 40 or 50-storey building, considering that all the buildings around it have no more than six floors?
Of course, the Government would say that it followed the law, and I believe so. The problem is that there’s no law to prohibit the construction of a building that has nothing to do with its surroundings. For now, we can only rely on good sense. But, in Macau, that seems a scarce resource as well.
Anyhow, what astonishes me is the different way in which the Government deals with the legal reform schedule. The National Security Law, which deals directly with human rights and people freedoms, took around four months to be approved. The Government released the draft bill on October 23, 2008, it went through a consultation period of five weeks and the final approval at the Legislative Assembly was on February 25, 2009.
So, why is it taking so long to go ahead with the land law and urban planning law revision? Are the economic interests more difficult to deal with than people’s rights and freedoms?
There’s nothing more important for things to work than an authentic commitment on behalf of Government’s transparency, but it’s time for its representatives to roll up their sleeves and put its promises into action.