Nearly 50,000 Macao residents complained to the Municipal Affairs Bureau last year, mainly about roadworks problems and rubbish piling up in the streets.
Government-appointed Central District Social Services Consultative Committee deputy convener Luo Ping said that the Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM) received 47,654 complaints from the public via its IAM Connect website and mobile app last year, of which 22,184 related to street hygiene with rubbish accumulation problems, while 5,583 were roadwork-related.
Luo spoke out after the committee’s regular closed-door meeting with IAM officials at the Patane Activity Centre.
According to the bureau’s officials, Luo pointed out, 97.76 per cent of the cases were replied to within 24 hours, with 85.7 per cent handled within three and 89.9 per cent dealt with in seven days.
When asked about whether the IAM Connect mobile app can merge with the Macao One Account, council member Lo Chong Fai quoted the officials as saying that the features of the two mobile apps are different, adding that the IAM Connect is a platform for the public to provide feedback, while the Macao One Account is a platform where local services are provided for the public. Consequently, according to the officials, the IAM Connect is unsuitable for adding to the Macao One Account.
Fellow council member Tou Mio Leng urged the government to formulate a post-Covid-19 economic recovery plan to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) maintain sufficient cash flow so that their business can recover, to implement the government’s Stay, Dine and See Macao as a new tourism product, and to enhance Macao’s overall tourism attractions to increase the number of tourists.
In addition, Tou said, the city’s neighbourhoods should be promoted more strongly by the government, and communication and cooperation should be increased between the government and the business sector to promote the neighbourhoods’ economic recovery, The Macau Post Daily reported.
Tou said that many SMEs suffered heavy financial losses due to the current Covid-19 wave, during which in Rua da Felicidade, for example, more than 70 per cent of the businesses were closed during the Christmas holidays, mainly because many staff were infected with Covid-19.
Tou urged the government to make good use of the remaining amount of its second MOP 10 billion financial support plan, which got off the ground in September, such as by providing more subsidies to the affected SMEs to alleviate their difficulties.
