The Commission of Audit (CA) and the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) sharply criticised government officials in separate reports released yesterday.
Both hard-hitting reports were submitted to Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng.
The CA slammed Parafuturo, a subsidiary of Macao Investment and Development (MID), a company set up by the public sector, for ignoring financial risks and failing to complete a project that involved substantial sums of public money.
According to its website, 94 per cent of the initial capital of MID is owned by the Macao Special Administrative Region, 3 per cent by the public Commercial and Industrial Fund and 3 per cent by the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute. By the end of last year the capital had been raised six times, reaching MOP 9.28 billion.
According to the CA report, since 2016 Parafuturo has invested MOP 890 million in a conference and training centre complex in Zhongshan, a city some 40 kilometres north of Macao in Guangdong province, that has still to start construction.
The auditors criticised Parafuturo for failing to carry out any preliminary studies before investing the MOP 890 million in the ill-fated project. They also slammed the company for investing MOP 18 million in a financial institution without carrying out any feasibility studies.
Meanwhile, the CCAC report castigated the government’s Education Development Fund for a string of administrative irregularities in its granting of subsidies to more than 100 units of 70 private schools, such as a dearth of rigorous monitoring of the subsidised projects’ progress involving construction work and equipment purchases.
The CCAC report also accuses the fund of committing administrative illegalities concerning the restitution of public funds.
Both Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong, and Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Elsie Ao Ieong U, issued separate statements in response to the two reports concerning their respective portfolios, promising to remedy the situation in each case, The Macau Post Daily reported.
