The Macao Foundation has announced that it is going to supervise the financial support it provides to worthy causes more closely in future, including examining its beneficiaries financial reports.
The foundation, which was set up in 1984, disburses large sums on an annual basis. Between 2001 and 2020, it approved nearly 14,000 requests involving nearly MOP 20 billion. As a corporate public body responsible for its own administration, finance and assets management, its mission is to boost cultural, social, economic, educational, scientific, academic, and philanthropic activities that promote Macao.
However in March last year the Commission of Audit criticised the foundation for failing to follow up on the financial subsidies that it hands out.
In 2020 the foundation cut financial support by half from the previous year to about MOP1.2 billion. The Macao University of Science and Technology was granted the largest share, some MOP 156.5 million.
The foundation suffered another setback in 2020 when Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai announced that MOP 10 billion, in effect a quarter of the foundation’s equity, would be used to support the implementation of economic support measures set to alleviate the economic impact of Covid-19.
