A survey conducted by the Macau Federation of Trade Unions (commonly known as Gung Luen) released Tuesday found that locals have become even more dissatisfied with the government’s policies last year than in 2011 – and they were most dissatisfied with the government’s housing and traffic policies.
The findings also showed that legal and political reforms were the policy aspects locals paid the least attention to.
The association first carried out a survey on whether citizens are satisfied with the government’s policies in 2011.
According to The Macau Post Daily, the findings of the survey were presented yesterday in a press conference, headed by the association’s Policy Research and Information Department Secretary Cristina Wong Leng Man.
The survey asked 1,423 locals aged 16 or above last November in streets around the city.
The scores range from 0 (most dissatisfied) to 10 (most satisfied), with 0 to 4.54 classified as “discontented”, 4.55 to 5.54 “neutral”, and 5.55 to 10 indicating that locals were satisfied with the 19 sections of the government’s policies.
The survey also asked respondents about the extent to which they paid attention to policies, with 0 to 4.54 categorised as “not caring about”, 4.55 to 5.54 meaning “neutral” and 5.55 to 10 suggesting that they cared about the policies.
The findings showed that on average the respondents gave the government a score of 4.84 for its overall public policies last year, a drop by 0.21 points from 2011 (5.05). There were eight policy features below 4.55 points (classified as “discontented”) last year, with housing and traffic policies getting the lowest scores at 3.46 and 3.77 respectively.
There were five policy aspects above 5.54 (classified as “satisfied”) last year. The respondents were most satisfied with education (5.92), welfare (5.89) and safety net policies (5.86), according to the findings.
The respondents cared about legal reforms (5.43) and political reforms (5.64) the least last year, while they cared the most about education (7.23), welfare (7.2) and safety net policies (7.14), according to the findings, which also showed that locals cared about public policies overall less last year (6.25) than in 2011 (6.62).
Wong said that the significant decline in scores that locals cared about legal and political reforms last year compared to 2011 might be due to the outcome of last year’s legislative election.
The results showed that the decrease in satisfaction with public policies was largely due to residents’ strong discontent with the slow completion of public housing projects and the city’s public bus services, said Wong, adding the situation suggested that the government had failed to achieve its “scientific governance” objective.
She also warned that if the government still failed to meet the public’s expectations, the city’s social stability and harmony would be at a greater risk.(Macaunews)
