Health Bureau: Infectious diseases building design awarded legally to Eddie Wong

The Health Bureau said that the award of the design contract for the city’s infectious diseases building to Executive Council (ExCo) member Eddie Wong Yue Kai in 2005 was in line with the law – in response to legislator José Pereira Coutinho’s accusation that the government had transferred benefits to the local architect via the contract. On Sunday, the directly-elected legislator made the accusation during local broadcaster TDM’s outdoor programme Macau Forum, saying that the authorities had granted the design contract to Mr. Wong’s company without inviting any public bids, and urging the city’s graft watchdog Commission Against Corruption to investigate the contract award. According to the Official Gazette, the ExCo member’s Gabinete de Arquitectura Eddie Wong Limitada was granted a MOP54 million (US$6.75 million) design contract for the infectious diseases building, administrative building, hospital dormitory and first-phase expansion of Hospital Conde S. Januário in 2005 by then-Chief Executive Edmund Ho. The local health department said in a press release on Monday evening that the contract award followed written consultations for the projects in 2005, claiming it had filed written enquiries to three local architectural design companies for price quotations and received three before the tender deadline. ‘The selection committee strictly analysed the quotations provided by the companies based on local contracting standards. It eventually awarded the design contract to the company that scored the highest, with the cheapest budget and the shortest required period for the works,’ the Bureau wrote. In 2014, the value of the awarded design contract was lowered to MOP31.8 million after the company altered its original drawings which had violated the height limits for buildings surrounding the cultural heritage site of the Guia Lighthouse. The ExCo member had previously been awarded several medical infrastructure projects by the authorities, including the MOP235 million architectural contract for the city’s Island Hospital complex granted in 2013.