The Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) said in a statement Thursday that it passed a case to Public Prosecution Service (MP) recently, in which a high-ranking official of the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) once again is suspected of abuse of power while another senior official of the bureau issuspected of having breached official secrecy rules.
A spokesperson for the bureaus told The Macau Post Daily that the high-ranking official was currently on holiday.
The spokesperson declined to reveal the name of the high-ranking official because the case was under judiciary review. However, the spokesperson confirmed that the unnamed high-ranking official is the one allegedly involved in another abuse of power case passed by the Commission Against Corruption to the Public Prosecution Service in March last year.
According to the spokesperson, the high-ranking official has been ordered to refrain from taking part in any decisions involving the bureau, such policy issues and bidding matters, following the accusations labelled against the person last year.
The bureau said in a statement that it was not “convenient” for the bureau to make any further comment on the case regarding the high-ranking official as the case was under judicial review.
The bureau also said in the statement that it has initiated disciplinary proceeding against the – also unnamed – senior official and vowed to fully review current regulations regarding bidding and purchasing procedures, as well as improving financial management.
The bureau also said that the incident was just an “individual” case.
According to the statement from CCAC, the high-ranking official is suspected of abuse of power again, but this time in a project regarding an electricity and monitoring system installation and two other public leasing contracts. The second case emerged when the graft busters followed up last year’s abuse of power case allegedly involving the high-ranking official.
During the investigation, the CCAC officers found another senior officer in the bureau had disclosed information about prices from rival bidders that tendered for a project of the bureau to a rival bidder so that the latter’s company could have information which would allow its proposal to be highly competitive.
The Commission Against Corruption announced in March last year that the high-ranking official was believed to have abused his or her power by making sure that some of the bureau’s service contracts were granted to family members. The suspect allegedly also breached official secrecy rules by passing privileged information about rival bidders to the family members.
According to informed sources quoted today by The Macau Post Daily, the high-ranking official is a vice-director of the bureau.(macaunews)
