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26.2 Civil Service System

Before the 1980s, there was no legal document for the establishment of Macao’s own administration; instead, the civil service system was based on the legislation in Lisbon. The civil service system in colonial Macao was based on the Overseas Civil Servants Charter, which was implemented by the Portuguese government in her colonies. The 1974 revolution in Portugal resulted in decolonization and independence of her colonies (Macqueen 1997, 88–89). In the case of Macao, the Portuguese tried to return sovereignty to the PRC. However, the Chinese government was apprehensive that the status of Hong Kong might be affected if she reincorporated Macao without resolving the Hong Kong problem with the British (Wong 1997, 7–8; see also, Yee 2001, 7–9). Therefore, the PRC decided to resume sovereignty of Macao after resolution of the Hong Kong problem and allowed the Portuguese to continue to “administrate” Macao until 1999. At the same time, the Portuguese government abolished the various laws for her rule in former colonies and undertook to reform Macao’s government.

In 1976, the Portuguese promulgated the Organic Law of Macao and began to legislate laws to establish Macao’s civil service system. Article 65 of the Organic Law stated that Macao had its own administration and that management of the civil service should be based on local legislation. In the 1980s, the Macao government promulgated various laws to establish the civil service system: (1) the Organic Law of Macao Administration’s Organizational Structure, (2) the General Regulation for the Appointment of Civil Servants, (3) the Public Servants Recruitment Law, and

(4) the Leaders and Director Charter. In 1989, the Portuguese officially abolished the Overseas Civil Servants Charter and introduced various laws for the consolidation of Macao’s civil service system: (1) the Charter for Macao Civil and Public Servants Discipline, (2) the General Principle for Leaders and Directors, (3) the General Principle for Expatriates, (4) the General and Special Career Track System of Macao Public Administration, and (5) the General Principle for Macao Public Servants (Huang 2004, 125). These legal documents shaped the civil service and defined the principles of personnel management within the government. They have been adopted by the MSAR since the handover.

26.2.1 Types of Civil Servants

There are three major categories of civil servant appointments as specified by the General Principle for Macao Public Servants (Huang 2004, 128–29):

(1)Tenure Track: The number of personnel at each rank, the recruitment and appointment processes, the salary, and other fringe benefits are determined by corresponding laws that regulate the organization of individual departments. The size of tenure-track civil servants in each government department is regulated by a corresponding law. For a department to legally exceed the quota of tenure-track civil servants, it must first propose an amendment and then receive an endorsement by the Legislative Assembly. In other words, the bureaucracy cannot recruit as many tenure-track civil servants as it pleases without the approval of the legislature. An appointment under this category cannot be dismissed unless a civil servant commits a serious legal violation. Civil servants also enjoyed an attractive pension scheme that ensured a monthly government subsidy for the entire period of retirement. In 2005, however, the MSAR government replaced the old pension scheme with a provident fund system.

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To distance itself from its colonial past, the MSAR encouraged the use of labor and service contracts to meet personnel demand. In 2000, the municipal branch1 promoted a new contract system in which employees were not designated civil servants. The contracts were treated as private agreements between government and employees, as were labor and service contracts in the private sector. The labor and service contracts may be negotiated between government departments and employees; however, terms are typically less attractive than those for civil servants. Departments use service contracts to recruit low-skilled labor. The worker is a service provider not an integral part of an employee-employer relationship. A department agrees to a certain payment for a fi xed period; there are no fringe benefits for the worker unless specified in the contract. Government agencies, conversely, use labor contracts to recruit middleto upper-level personnel. These recruits do enter an employment relationship. Their salaries and fringe benefits are more attractive than service contractors’ and may be comparable to civil servants’. Using this contract system, MSAR hires personnel for the short term (usually a month or quarter term for service contracts; 2-year term for labor contracts), at lower cost (less pay and benefits than for civil servants). Since its introduction, this appointment practice has been widely adopted by many government departments.

However, the new contract system does not solve the problems of the old system, nepotism and long-term appointments persist under the new practice. Since they are not required to report the hiring of service providers to the central personnel agency (while they must do so for civil servants), departments misuse the new contract system. Once departments have sufficient financial resources, they can employ personnel with labor and service contracts. A department must report to the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP), which serves as the central personnel unit of the MSAR government, for the employment of civil servants but not for labor and service contract employment. Although there has not been an immense increase in the number of civil servants since the transfer of sovereignty in 1999, there has been an increasing number of workers employed under the labor and service contract system. The number of employees in the service contract system has risen from 30% to 50% of the total number of civil servants (including tenure track, contractual term, and temporary contractual term).2 Thus, the new contract system has not regulated the growth of employees inside the MSAR government. Rather, it generates disparity within the personnel system: it divides government workers so that employees may work in similar jobs but their pay and benefits vary because of different appointment methods (Table 26.1).

26.2.2 Bureaucratic Structure

MSAR adopts a rank-in-person approach (Daley 2002, 75–76) for its bureaucratic structure, which stipulates a separation in the rank and position of civil servants. According to the Legal Framework of Public Service (Decree 86/89/M), there were nine tiers in civil servant ranking. In ranks 5 to 9, each rank was divided into four grades. In principle, higher-ranking civil servants were responsible for policy making and implementation while the middle and lower ranks supplied clerical support and manual labor. However, as there was no official guideline for job assignments,

1Before 2001, there were two municipal councils, which consisted of directly elected members and were responsible for environmental hygiene, food safety, and cultural affairs. However, the MSAR government argued that the establishment of municipal councils violated the Basic Law of Macao, which is the mini-constitution of the MSAR. Therefore, it abolished them and founded the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (IACM) as a substitute.

2Many civil servants from different government departments told the author that the number of service contract employees was huge after the handover. Some indicated that the size was about 30% to 50% of the regular civil servant appointment.

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Source: Figures for 1996–2005 are taken from SAFP, Macau Special Administration Region Public Administration Human Resources Report 2005 (Macau: 2006), 150; figures for 2006–2008 are from SAFP, Macau Special Administration Region Public Administration Human Resources Report 2008 (Macau: 2009), 149; the 2009 figure is from SAFP’s website, www.safp.gov.mo/ external/chin/info/statistics/showdata.asp?table=1 (accessed September 14, 2009).

a Figures do not include labor/service contract employment. b Figure from June 30, 2009.

decisions are at the discretion of agency heads. As a result, some senior-ranking officials may do clerical work while middle-ranking officers participate in planning and policy making.3 The system does not possess a career development mechanism to train and promote civil servants through job assignments. Instead, it is arbitrary and personal relationships may be involved.

In order to improve the quality of officials, the MSAR government proposed a reform of the civil service structure, which was passed by the legislature in July 2009. The government indicated that the ranking system did not match the new socio-political situations and some positions seemed to be redundant (No. 2/III/2009 Recommendation, Bill Committee on Legal Framework of Public Service, Legislative Assembly, 2009:3). The reform streamlines the bureaucratic structure by cutting the number of tiers to six. In particular, the first and second tiers as well as the third and fourth ranks in the old system were merged. The sixth tier was canceled. Moreover, the reform tightens the entry requirement of each rank in order to improve the quality of civil servants.

3The author talked to some government officials about the prevalence of mismatch between the nature of the job and an official’s rank in job assignments in the government.

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Source: The Legal Framework of Public Service (Law 14/2009), Appendix I, Table 2, available at the Government Printing Bureau website, http://bo.io.gov.mo/bo/i/2009/31/lei14_cn.asp (accessed September 16, 2009).

head of the Executive Branch; five chief secretaries assist him. These are: (1) secretary for administration and justice, (2) secretary for economy and finance, (3) secretary for security, (4) secretary for social affairs and culture, and (5) secretary for transport and public works. The five chief secretaries are responsible for specific policy areas. Each supervises a five-tier bureaucracy, including

(1) bureau, (2) department, (3) division, (4) sector, and (5) section (General Principle for Leaders and Directors, Article 5, Decree 84/85/M).4 They appoint the directors or heads of these units. Wu and Chen (2000, 39) argue that the postcolonial government has adopted a ministerial system of bureaucracy in that political leaders appoint heads of government agencies. Since heads of government agencies are not necessarily from the civil service, secretaries may select non-civil servants to leading bureaucratic positions. If a civil servant is assigned as head of an agency, he or she may return to the original serving unit at the termination of the leadership appointment. Authorities may also choose middle-ranking officials to fill leadership positions. For instance, civil servants at the clerical rank were appointed as heads of departments and divisions in the Finance

Table 26.3 The Change of Bureaucratic Structure in the 2009 Reform

4It is noteworthy that the government reformed the hierarchy of a bureau. Sector and section will be cancelled in most bureaus, except those with special approval by the authorities. See Stipulation on General Principle for Leaders and Directors (Law 15/2009), available at the Government Printing Bureau web site, http://bo.io.gov. mo/bo/i/2009/31/lei15_cn.asp (accessed September 16, 2009).

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