There is a new item in the public works agenda: the construction of the so-called fifth connection between Macau and Taipa, a tunnel that will link the reclamation area next to the old bridge, on the Macau side, and a new reclamation area on the opposite Taipa side. It seems there is some urgency in the decision.
The Public Works Department launched the first phase of the public consultation on the environmental impact of the project. (Question aside: is there an ongoing consultation for the fourth connection? I could not find any reference, in either the Public Works or the Environmental Department websites.)
The sense of urgency comes from the fact that the consultation period, if we can call it that, appears to have lasted for just about ten days – announced with a press release on June 10th, closed on June 21st. Other than the short time reserved for it, there are a few unusual features in this consultation.
The government has a portal dedicated to public consultation exercises. As of yesterday, there was no reference to this process in the government portal, in any of the official languages. Did it run so fast there was no time to publish it there?
Unfortunately, the Public Works website is also of no help there. If we follow the link provided with the original press release, we get to a page that greets us with a message: “The page you requested is not available.” The message in Portuguese is more specific: it “is not available anymore.”
If we get to the main page of the website, there are a couple of references to consultations processes, including one relative to another (smaller) tunnel between two reclamation areas on the Macau peninsula side – but nothing on the fifth connection.
The press release from the government media office is also somewhat mystifying. The first phase, we are told, includes (better said, included) “preliminary preparation, divulgation of the state of the works, investigation and study and analysis of the information collected by the entity responsible for the environmental impact assessment” [sic].
It is not obvious what all this means, or what precisely the public could be called in to comment – even assuming, which is less than sure, that the first phase of the consultation period related to the first
