Legislators approve 2015 Budget

The Legislative Assembly (AL) passed the final readings of three bills yesterday in their last plenary session of this year.
These bills are the 2015 Budget, anti-foreign official bribery bill as well as a bill regulating the registration and qualification system of construction and urban planning professionals.
The 2015 Budget estimates that the total revenue of the government in the coming year will reach some MOP155 billion, up just 0.7 per cent year-on-year, while the budgeted total expenditure is some MOP83.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 7.8 per cent.
The very slight growth in the revenue of 2015 is due to the government’s expectations that there will be zero-growth gaming revenue for the city, which accounts for 83.5 per cent of the total revenue of the SAR, legislator Chan Chak Mo, who chaired the second standing committee of AL, said during his presentation of the sub-committee’s report on the budget.
In addition, the general integrated budget of public expenditure for 2015 had increased MOP13.1 billion compared to that at the beginning of 2014, reaching a total of some MOP93.1 billion. Mr. Chan said the growth was due to the suggestion of Increasing the salaries of public servants in the budget.
The legislator also claimed that salary-lift suggestions plus other factors are translating into government expenditure on human resources jumping 18.5 per cent year-on-year, amounting to MOP2.9 billion.
Although the bill was unanimously passed by the Assembly, legislators António Ng Kuok Cheong and Au Kam San opposed the expenditure on the third Article of the bill.
“I would like to remind here again that before the implementation of amending the budget framework law, we are not able to fully supervise the budget of the government…. I hope that the future budget framework law can regulate that the budget of government departments, their increases in the budgets, even their expansion of their [administrative] structures, will all have to be passed to the AL for open discussion, in addition to the budget of infrastructure,” said Mr. Ng, who had raised similar reservations before.
The 2015 budget includes all the similar ‘fruits’ sharing polices of this year, such as the cash handout of MOP9,000 to permanent residents, MOP7,000 deposits in the personal provident fund of residents as well as deducting or waiving some taxes. In addition, it also suggested increasing the salaries of public servants from the current MOP74 per point to MOP79.
Two other bills The anti-foreign official bribery bill was also passed yesterday. The bill was expected to extend the city’s anti-corruption prevention and sanctioning scope to foreign public officials and officials of public international organisations.
The bill is seen to be in compliance with the United Nation’s Convention Against Corruption, which came into effect in February 2006 in China, Hong Kong and Macau. In addition, it authorises Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) to investigate any corrupt acts related to external trade. The bill will come into effect on January 1, 2015.
On the other hand, the bill regulating the registration and qualification system for construction and urban planning professionals will only come into force on July 1, while a review will be conducted two years after its effective day.