Macau has zeroed in on Singapore as the model for its public administration but the reality is the two cities are oceans apart

After the handover, the Macau government announced it would start looking at Singapore as a model from which to learn good practices in public administration. That led to groups of civil servants being sent there for field studies, while associations were sponsored to make exchange visits to Singapore. The results seem meagre in relation to the amount of money invested.

I have a positive impression of Singapore, gathered during my year as a visiting scholar doing research at the National University of Singapore and later during several visits, which lasted for anything between two days and one month.

In my opinion, out of all things that the Singapore government does well, the Macau government can do barely any and it has very little chance of ever learning to excel in any of them.

Policies to nurture the best candidates for the job are one of the tenets of governance that Singapore cherishes most. Every year the government and private enterprises award scholarships to several hundred high-school graduates to study at the world’s top universities, like Harvard, Cambridge, Yale and Princeton. Those who are not graduates of top universities have a limited chance of being promoted to top management posts in the government or large corporations.

In contrast, the Macau government prefers to treat all diplomas as equal in selecting or promoting its personnel. Little importance is attached to the reputation of the university that produced the candidate.

Some people with strong background and connections, having obtained their bachelor degrees from low-tier universities in the mainland and master’s degrees from unknown universities in Europe, were hired as senior civil servants immediately. Within few years, they were promoted to leadership positions in the government.

Communication breakdown

While the government says the public administration is to mainly follow an open recruitment policy, it was still common (at least until recently) for a “friend” to get a phone call from a government department boss and quickly find himself behind a desk, without having to face any open selection or examination process.

In view of such cronyism, few students aspire to be admitted to famous universities abroad, preferring instead to cultivate relationships and their networks of influence, or “guanxi”.

During a visit to Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, the chief executive at the time, Edmund Ho Hau Wah, expressed the hope that the school would admit Macau civil servants to study. But the project didn’t go through, because candidates would have to meet the school’s admission requirements.

As long as applicants for civil service positions have insufficient qualifications, the wish to bring the quality of governance in Macau up to Singapore’s standard will remain a comical pipe dream.

Singaporeans, especially those that have received a higher education, usually communicate in English. But the standard of English in Macau is appalling – too poor for people to make themselves understood in a simple day-to-day conversation. So I am pessimistic about the results of exchange and study programmes in Singapore.

Gently weep

A Singaporean friend, a researcher in Japanese and East Asian politics, told me that he had received a group from a Macau association to discuss several of Singapore’s public policies. On hearing this, I became suspicious and asked: “Why should they meet with you, an expert on Japan, rather than consult the experts in Singapore policies at the Institute of Policy Studies?” He replied that they had probably had to resort to him because the experts at the Institute of Policy Studies spoke only English and the Macau visitors’ command of English was poor.

A similar story was told by another friend, an early immigrant to Singapore from Hong Kong, who works at a school for the mentally handicapped. Her school once received a party representing Macau associations. As the visitors could not speak English and the headmaster could not understand Cantonese, she was asked to be the interpreter.

Worse, when a group from a Macau association visited Singapore this summer for an evaluation trip, instead of taking the low-cost direct flight, they preferred the A380 deluxe flight, and instead of staying in a three-star or four-star hotel, they checked into the Marina Bay Sands.

The Macau government sponsored these associations. Yet nobody from the government has ever shown any concern about the practical results of such visits.

To reduce traffic congestion, Singapore tries to make its residents use public transport by making owning and using private cars expensive.

It takes less than one year to get permanent residency in Singapore.

For greening its landscape, Singapore uses mainly trees with broad leaves, which give shade, reduce the temperature and keep the dust down. And it has enough cleaners to sweep up the leaves should they fall off the branches.

Of all these things, which ones could Macau do at all, let alone do well?

By Bill Kwok-Ping Chou  Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Macau