While the proposed amendment to the law governing public budget making is to stipulate higher frequencies of the public investment plan being submitted by civic departments to the Legislative Assembly, representatives from local banks and auditors’ associations remain doubtful about how the government is to secure a more accurate making of the budget plan. As part of the amendment to the budget framework law, aside from submitting a yearly budget execution report for the Assembly to deliberate on by November or before annually, the public departments here also have to submit a report of their quarterly and half-yearly budget execution and related accounting information to the Legislative Assembly, the Financial Services Bureau (DSF) delegates explained in a seminar held yesterday. For any increases that occur in overall budgeted expenditure for a fiscal year, such changes will have to be deliberated upon by the Assembly, according to the amendment. Another major proposed change is the listing of all budgeted expenditure on major investment plans here, especially infrastructure projects involving multiple years of investment. At the seminar, the chairman of Macau Association of Banks, Ip Sio Kai, shared doubts with a few other accounting and audit association delegates on how the government is going to secure the accuracy of the budget making, especially for public infrastructure projects accounting for multiple years of investment. “By the time it [the budget plan] is delivered to the Assembly, the construction has not even started,” Mr. Ip said on the occasion, which is part of the government’s ongoing consultation on the legal amendment. “The situation can be, for these public works projects, that there is no ceiling cost set for it. We have the budget plan, and we have the [amended] law but how can we [guarantee] that the budget can be reflected accurately?” the banker asked. Doubts Addressing these doubts, the deputy director of the Financial Services Bureau, Daisy Ho In Mui, stressed that the proposed legal changes already strictly governed the civic departments’ expenditure, and a reinforced role for the public and Assembly monitor any further expenditure changes. “The amended law allows us to focus on monitoring public finance, and enhance transparency on how public money is used. We hope that for the departments here they can be scientific and detailed in making their budget plan,” said Ms. Ho, “This could be difficult, as the longer a public works project takes, the more complex the budget making.” “But with the law, when the departments foresee that they need more money, they have to account for the addition to their budget for the Assembly and public to know,” the official said. “This is a mechanism to alleviate the [over-budget] issue here.” Speaking at the seminar, Bureau Director Stephen Iong Kong Leong acknowledged that a “long-term” goal for the government is to adopt an accrual basis accounting rule when making the public budget balance, while this is not included in the proposed changes to the budget law. “Our long-term goal is to adopt an accrual basis accounting rule for budget making, but to realise that it involves some more training and software to support it,” the Director said, adding that more time is needed for the city to study the adoption of such a system. The city is still using cash basis accounting rules to balance the public budget.
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