Chapter 22

History and Context of Public

Administration in Macao

22.1 Introduction

It has been 10 years since Macao’s return to China under the political framework of “One Country Two Systems.” Macao was governed by Portugal for over 400 years and its citizens received mixed cultural heritage of both Chinese and Portuguese characteristics.1 In the Macao government, the public administration has been heavily influenced by its Portuguese administrative culture, which has its own merits of easiness and relaxation, but lacks discipline and formalization as modern management science requires. In comparison with the Anglo-Saxon administrative culture, the Latin style represents intimate personal relations, a lax working attitude, and to some extent, it is easy to induce corruption. At the time of handover, the Macao civil service was mainly occupied by such a mixed administrative culture, which was strongly criticized by citizens and scholars. “Prior to the beginning of the transition period in 1987, Macao’s civil service had several characteristics. These included inefficiency, insufficient training, low educational level, corruption, frequent reorganization, recruitment and promotion on the basis of political patronage rather than merit, and intense bureaucratic infighting among government departments. … From a Weberian perspective, Macao’s

1Macao differed from Hong Kong as Hong Kong was under British colonial rule while Macao was administered by Portugal over the last 400 years without access to the sovereignty of the enclave.

463

© 2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

464 Public Administration in Southeast Asia

bureaucracy arguably remains underdeveloped and backward.”2 Although the Portuguese government made efforts to improve the situation before the handover, things have remained more or less the same because of the low educational level of civil servants in general and the political sensitivity of handover on the part of the Portuguese high officials who have to train local Chinese to replace them after the handover. Who would be glad to train successors to replace themselves?

After the handover, the newly appointed Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) chief executive, Edmund Ho, was reluctant to carry out major reform measures because he understood that at the beginning of SAR government, maintaining the morale of local civil servants was key to his governance as a new government. The civil service underwent several phenomenal reforms but remained largely intact. In 2002, with the opening of the gambling franchise, the economic transformation proved to be quicker than most people expected. Citizens and investors’ expectations of public administration were higher than the reality could provide. Citizens complained about corruption practice, inefficiency, and policy incompetence on the part of major government officials. Recently, midway through the chief executive’s second term, the Macao SAR government was determined to launch full-scale administrative reform and promulgated its roadmap in this respect. Why did the government decide to push forward major reforms 8 years after the handover? Will it succeed? The author discusses public administration in Macao, its strengths and weaknesses and analyzes major reforms necessary to ensure that the SAR government improves its governance capacity.

22.2 History

At the time of handover, the Macao public administration was characterized by the Portuguese administrative heritage of low efficiency and corruption. The preparatory work for the handover was not a success. The then-Portuguese Macao government concentrated its efforts on ‘localization,’ the training of Chinese civil servants to replace the leaving Portuguese expatriates. However, localization encountered many problems, including the questionable quality of some local bureaucrats and translators, opposition from the Portuguese on the measures facilitating localization, the half-hearted attempt at bilingualism, and losing quality engineers and technicians to the private sector, etc.3 However, there are positive sides to Portuguese-style public administration in Macao. For example, in Portuguese culture, respect for the law is strong. Once a policy is formulated and becomes law, civil servants tend to follow the letter of the law and implement it. The rule of law remains at the center of European cultural tradition, which has substantial influence over Macao administrative culture.

The scale and structure of the Macao public administration was characterized as oversized and in urgent need of reform. In Macao, the total population of half a million needs to support a civil service of more than 18,000, a much higher ratio in comparison with neighboring areas of Hong Kong and Singapore. Also, public administration has been characterized by frequent organizational restructuring. As a practice, many Portuguese governors came to Macao and changed the structure of policy secretaries and bureaus casting to their own expectations. Before handover, each governor dispatched to Macau by Lisbon reshuffled his management team, arbitrarily adding or reducing the number of undersecretaries and bureaus, which caused chaos and dissatisfaction among Macau civil servants and citizens. To address this, the Basic Law of Macao restructured the

2 Lo Shiu Hing, Political Development in Macao, Hong Kong: The China University Press, 1995. p. 116. 3 Ibid., p. 25.

© 2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

© 2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

468 Public Administration in Southeast Asia

is because the law needs to implement further and detailed regulation, as the new system is more complicated and easy to cause complaints. For example, each bureau head has to write a detailed working plan for civil servants under his or her supervision and evaluate them twice every year. The bureau head spends the last month of each year writing detailed evaluation, and appeals can be long and result in legal processes. To avoid trouble, supervisors often write favorable remarks regardless of individuals’ real performance. In general, the modernization of the civil service charter has not been systematic and has caused discontent and unease among staff. But apart from this, the SAR government has organized major reforms in the field of application of computer knowledge in applying for government licenses and practicing ISO quality management. Some forms of restructuring of government organizations after the handover. Also, the Macao SAR government adopted a new Provident Fund system under which more than 6,000 government employees who were excluded in the old retirement system have achieved a retirement guarantee under this new retirement scheme.14 Before handover, two thirds of civil servants were contracted under the system and were not provided with a retirement scheme.

Have the piecemeal measures achieved satisfactory results? Media comments and citizens’ opinions suggest that the answer is ‘no’. On the one hand, citizens feel comfortable with the reform measures and phenomenal progress as discussed before. On the other hand, they know that many deep-rooted problems have not been solved and could cause grave concern and discontent in Macao society, especially under the context that Macao has opened its gambling franchise and the pace of economic development has been quickened. The citizens’ opinions were reflected in call-in programs on Macao Radio from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. every weekday. Most of the calls have complained about chaotic policy formulation and implementation, and inefficient bureaucratic processes. When the Macao gambling franchise was opened in 2002, the tranquil and backward situation was broken. Before the opening of the gambling franchise, Macao witnessed consecutive years of negative growth rate and economic recession. The opening of the gambling franchise was a successful process. Many international entertainment conglomerates successfully bid for gambling licenses and began to invest large amounts of money in Macao. Major Las Vegas players, like Wynn Cooperation, Las Vegas Sands, and MGM established hotel and casino businesses in Macao. The Macao economy witnessed double-digit growth for several years and Macao began to receive world attention with heavy American investment. Since the opening of the gambling franchise, CNN has reported many stories about Macao. The investment and leap forward of the Macao economy called for an early overhaul of administrative reforms, as investors expected a responsible and efficient government to support their business expansion and citizens raised their aspirations for the government because they hoped that the newly established SAR government could help them to confront the challenges bestowed on Macao local businesses. With accelerated growth and the need for human resources from the big investors, Macao local businesses felt the pain brought about by economic prosperity, which doubled property prices and employee salaries in a short time. They demand government help for survival. Many small family restaurants and shops have shut down because of the higher employee salaries and rental costs. Public transportation is congested, and taxis are difficult to find in the old town of Macao. Buses cannot cope with the large numbers of tourists and citizens. Employees find it difficult to get to work on time and students to get to school. Citizens have demanded help from Macau SAR government. It is the responsibility of the government to manage the situation and govern the city in an orderly way. However, because Macao’s public administration did not carry out systematic reforms, the old administrative culture has remained and old regulations have not been revised substantially.

14 Overseas Chinese Daily, June 29, 2007, p. 1.

© 2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC