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Table 24.5 reveals the gradual increase of staff since the handover. The total number of staff has been exceeded since the official setup in 2004 and reached a record high in 2007. Although the Commission claimed that some staff are not employed by a permanent contract,12 it did not change the personnel establishment limit. The total number of investigators in 2007 remains at a relatively low level, thereby worsening the shortage of manpower. Indeed, the Commission will find it very difficult to deploy such a small number of investigators to the three investigation departments in 2007 to make them work effectively and efficiently especially as the gaming franchise has expanded from one to six and the community is developing drastically. Yet, it would be reasonable to expand the personnel establishment.

24.3 New Challenges

The CAC had been enjoying a continual 7-year honeymoon because it had not been critically tested on its capacity to combat organized bribery crimes. The fallout from the case of the former secretary for public works and transportation, Ao Man Loon, as well as the chief executive’s failing to report personal interest to the CAC together have made the anti-graft department face unprecedented challenges ever since.

24.3.1 The Case of Ao Man Long

Mr. Ao was the first civil servant at the secretarial level to be caught by the CAC in December 2006 after the handover. The public wanted to know whether Ao would be treated like every ordinary accused person or whether he would he enjoy the advantages and protection that often exists among officials. It was soon found that actions taken against Ao were far from common fairness. First, one day after Ao’s arrest the chief executive announced at a press conference that “quite substantial” evidence was found.13 Second, Ao was escorted to a house search and the Public Prosecutions Office for further investigation, handcuffed without masking his face in a public place, which is not the usual practice in Macao CAC as well as the police. Although Ao’s lawyer made a complaint, it was to no avail.14 Third, although Edmond Ho had reiterated that there should be no open addresses or comments on Ao’s case for the sake of maintaining the fundamental principle of legal justice,15 the CAC disclosed a large volume of evidence including the ways that Ao exercised money laundering, and money, deeds and properties, etc., claiming Ao acquired this wealth through corruption.16 Obviously, Ao was still an innocent person at that time as he was not on trial and had not been found guilty by a court of law. Those practices that made Ao appear like a criminal impressed the public, as they assumed that the presumption of innocence did not apply to Ao, and he was suspected of contravening Article 29 and 30 of the MSAR Basic

12The author presented this topic at the Conference of Public Governance: Theories and Practices, held in October 2007 at the University of Macau. A person claiming to be a middle-level official of the CAC stated that there were a number of staff employed on non-permanent contracts, and the Commission did not see these staff as members of the establishment so they would not be counted in the Annual Report. She was not willing to disclose the types of contract being used by the Commission while recruiting staff and also refused to give information on the number of staff in the three investigation departments

13Shimin Daily, December 8, 2006, p. 3.

14Macao Daily, December 11, 2006, p.2.

15Va Kio Daily, December 19, 2006, p. 11.

16Macao Daily, April 5, 2007, p. 2; Apple Daily, April 5, 2007, p. 13.

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Law.17 This usual practice of the CAC was later criticized by the Law Society of Macao in a public announcement published in the newspaper, accusing the CAC’s moves as contravening judicial secrecy and the principle of presumption of innocent.18

The court trials of Ao Man Long had also exposed the patron-client politics that existed in the civil service in Macao. These dyadic relations in the bureaucracy revealed that subordinates condescendingly followed or even conjectured their patron superiors’ wishes, disregarding whether these actions might step on the brink of illegality.19 For instance, Lou Chun Chon, a member of the Bidding Assessment Committee for Public Works, changed the scores of the assessed parties to make the lower score company get the contract as he realized it was Ao’s wish;20 Pun Pou Leng, deputy director of the Infrastructure Development Office, bypassed the formal procedures of calling for a public bidding and renewed a 7-year contract to Macao Hygiene Company and offered a contract to Macao Hydraulic Engineering Company Limited, obeying Ao’s instructions as he was her boss.21 Chow Wai Man, formerly the chair of the Bidding Assessment Committee for Public Works, signed offer document a supplementary construction works which was written in Portuguese on the request of Ao Man Long’s office, but he did not know Portuguese.22

Clearly, the above examples may just expose part of the officialdom culture within the Macao civil service. Officials paid no attention to the instructions itself, but rather carried out or conjectured their superiors’ wishes in order to display their loyalty and ‘clientelist’ attitudes. The MSAR government was compelled by Ao’s case to set up the Provisional Committee for the Analysis of Lands and Public Concession System and the Provisional Committee for the Analysis of Public Finance System,23 in response to the failure of the lands concession and public finance system as exposed by Ao’ case.24

24.3.2 Dilemma of Sunshine Law

To maintain a higher standard and requirement for a clean and ethical civil service, the MSAR government has introduced a new law entitled “Patrimonial Declaration of Incomes and Interests” (Law number 11.2003, also known as the Sunshine Law) to replace the old one passed under the Portuguese regime in 1998 regulating public servants to submit a declaration of incomes and interests.25 According to Article 1 of the new Sunshine Law, all public servants including the chief executive are obliged to submit a declaration to report their incomes and interests.26 Article 27 of the Sunshine Law clarifies the definitions of incorrect information and penalties:27

17For details of this legislation, see MSAR Printing Bureau website: http://bo.io.gov.mo/bo/i/1999/leibasica/ index_cn.asp#c3.

18Shimin Daily, May 10, 2008, webpage: http://www.shimindaily.com.mo/find.asp.

19Legislator Au Kam Sang described it as “Hungry Wolf Effect,” meaning that yes-man officials in the civil service obeyed their superiors for the sake of their career. Shimin Daily, November 20, 2007, p. 1.

20Oral statement given in the trial at the Court of Final Appeal. Shimin Daily, November 17, 2007, pp. 2–3.

21Ibid.

22Oral statement given in the trial at the Court of Final Appeal. Shimin Daily, November 20, 2007, p. 6.

23Va Kio Daily, January 6, 2007. p.1.

24Th e actual functions of these two committees were criticized by legislator Au Kam San as useless but served only as a political case. Personal interview, February 2, 2008.

25Details of this old law (number 3/98/M) can found at the MSAR government Printing Bureau webpage: http:// bo.io.gov.mo/bo/i/98/26/lei03_cn.asp.

26See MSAR Printing Bureau webpage: http://www.imprensa.macau.gov.mo/bo/i/2003/30/lei11_cn.asp.

27Author’s English translations, the official version provides only Chinese and Portuguese.

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(1)If the incorrect information in the declaration is made by inexcusable mistake, the offender shall be fined equivalent to remunerations ranging from 6 months to 1 year for the current position

(2)If the information in the declaration is incorrect with intention, the offender as the litigant shall be punished for giving fraudulent address or declaration; if a fine is applicable to the punishment, it shall not below the remuneration of 1 year for the offender’s current position

(3)For the purpose of starting criminal proceedings against the unlawful behavior laid down in the previous clause of this Article, the president of the Court of Final Appeal or the commissioner of the Commission Against Corruption shall forward the Certificate of Declaration with the incorrect information and other documents of information deemed appropriate to the Public Prosecutions Office

The critical challenge to the Sunshine Law since its enactment in 2003 was a constitutional dilemma when the chief executive, Edmond Ho, was disclosed by the Hong Kong South China Morning Post as being one of the shareholders of the listed company, Many Town Company Limited, which indirectly held about HKD100m share profit of casino tycoon Stanley Ho’s company, the Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau (STDM),28 but he failed to report this profit in the Declaration in accordance to the “Patrimonial Declaration of Incomes and Interests.” He explained that he had given all the rights of the shares to his brother in exchange for shares in Tai Fung Bank of Macao, but he did not change the name on the shares, so he had the right to exercise the shares in terms of the law. Ho submitted an agreement of exchange of shares replacement to the Court of Final Appeal for their records,29 the reason was that he wanted to “further actualize the spirit of the Declaration of Incomes and Interests system.”30 However, the CAC, which was responsible for monitoring and executing the law, did not express any opinion on the Ho case, so Ho also nominated the head of CAC, and sought to remain impartial. In fact, the key points of this incident are whether Ho had contravened the Sunshine Law and the incorrect information declaration was made by inexcusable mistake or not. The CAC bears sole responsibility to inform the public if they had carried out a preliminary investigation and found that it was not an inexcusable mistake. The CAC must also show the public that it is just and fair to all regardless of the identity of the accused person. Ho was innocent in this incident, as he was not investigated or charged, nor even invited for clarification by the CAC, but the way the CAC handled the case made Ho’s actions seem very suspicious.

Furthermore, democrats Ng Kuok Cheong and Au Kam San, legislators representing the New Macao Association, tried to table an amendment to the Sunshine Law in February 2008, but they were opposed by the MSAR Legislative Assembly—15 opposed, 8 abstained, and 4 supported. The amendment suggested Part II of the Declaration recording the incomes and interests of the public servants, including the chief executive, principle officials, members of the Executive Council, leaderships and heads of the public departments, would be open to public for scrutiny.31 The reasons that the legislators used to oppose or abstain from the amendment focused on maintaining personal privacy, rather than clean governance or threats to their personal security. However, it has long been recognized by public figures that they enjoy a lesser degree of privacy than ordinary

28South Chinese Morning Post, August 13, 2007, p. 1; Apple Daily, August 14, 2007, p. 4.

29Macao Daily, August 16, 2007, p. 2.

30Shimin Daily, August 16, 2007, p. 1.

31For a full version of the motion, see the Macao Legislative Assembly webpage: http://www.al.gov.mo/proposta/ alt_11-2003/nota_justificativa_cn.pdf.

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