Iec Long way away

The Cultural Affairs Bureau is still in the process of ‘conducting data collection and analysis’ relating to the Iec Long Firecracker Factory, following a July mandate by the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam Chon Weng, to submit a follow-up to the findings of a Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) report, which was released in July of last year regarding the land-swaps originating from the factory.
In a statement in August, the Director of the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC), Ung Vai Meng, noted his pleasure with the fact that the local population considered the heritage preservation of the site as important, noting that he intended to speed up the application for the site to be classified as cultural heritage.
Four months later, in response to Business Daily’s enquiries, the bureau notes that the site is now ‘listed in the survey of immovable cultural heritage’. This is contrary however, to responses by the IC to CCAC enquiries before the report’s July publication, in which the corruption watchdog notes ‘the IC expressed […] the Iec Long Firecracker Factory is not qualified to be prioritised and listed in the list of initiating evaluation process’.
One of the major roadblocks to the site’s classification lies in the fact that the IC has yet to finish collecting ‘comprehensive information … regarding the ownership of the factory’, which it notes as ‘increasing the difficulties in the way of classification’.
However, to speed up the process, the bureau has ‘stepped up processing the works, hoping to include the site in the Classification Procedure of the 2nd Group of Immovable Heritage in Macau,’ notes the IC’s response. So far information is not available as to when the second group of classifications are to occur.

Protection
According to the fourth article of the Protection of Cultural Heritage Law (Law no. 11/2013), the ‘MSAR protects and values the cultural heritage as an essential instrument of the fulfilment of the dignity of humanity and object of fundamental rights’. The law also notes that ‘the knowledge, study, protection, appreciation and promotion of the cultural heritage constitutes an obligation of the MSAR’.
The Department of Cultural Heritage, under the IC, lists on its website as its third responsibility ‘exercising the powers conferred on the Cultural Affairs Bureau by Law no. 11/2013’.
In its response to Business Daily, the IC notes that ‘the structural renovation of the insecure building had been carried out by the Cultural Affairs Bureau,’ referring to maintenance works required, given the poor state of the buildings in the complex. This was despite check-ups and maintenance work conducted by the IC over the years that the complex was standing idle, which the CCAC report noted as having cost the IC ‘more than MOP5 million [in] restoration and remediation costs in the conservation works’.
The CCAC report however, notes that ‘there is not any basis for the IC to pay on the owners’ behalf and to be reimbursed later’ noting that CCAC did not ‘see the IC’s attempt to recover the expenses from the “owners”’.
In response to Business Daily, the IC notes that it has ‘no new renovation plan at the present stage’ and that the ‘Iec Long Firecracker Factory is not in the urgent and dangerous condition’.
The director of the Cultural Affairs Bureau, Ung Vai Meng, announced on January 7 that he would be stepping down from the position that he has held since March 2010, effective next month, stating that he wants to go back to his previous life as an artist.