Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong said yesterday that the government will not launch another round of 8,000-pataca consumption e-vouchers this year as the previous rounds were just a temporary measure to reduce residents’ hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak over the past three years.

Lei made the remarks during a Q&A plenary session in the legislature’s hemicycle yesterday as lawmaker-cum-unionist José Pereira Coutinho urged the government to to pay out the 8,000-pataca consumer vouchers again this year.

Addressing the Q&A session, Lei pointed out that it is the fourth year that the government has a budget deficit, but even so, the government is still giving its annual wealth-sharing handout to residents, which Lei described as “not stingy at all”.

Lei also said that the government will ensure that residents’ livelihoods and employment as well as the business environment for local enterprises will improve, by constantly keeping abreast of local economic developments and making dynamic plans to cope with any changes.

As for the government’s special allocation for the Non-Mandatory Central Provident Fund, Lei said it will not add anything once again this year because the government has been coping with a budget deficit since 2020, i.e., for four consecutive years including 2023, adding that the special allocation is not one of the government’s long-term and fixed benefits for residents.

Macau confirmed its first COVID-19 case in January 2020, after which the government began to spend huge amounts of money to tackle the pandemic and support local residents and businesses financially.

Due to the adverse impact of the pandemic on Macau’s economy and finances, the government has refrained from paying its special annual allocation of 7,000 patacas into residents’ Non-Mandatory Central Provident Fund accounts, after COVID-19 hit Macau.

In addition, when some lawmakers expressed concern about the remaining 4 billion patacas in the government’s second 10-billion-pataca financial support plan, Lei said that the plan was for “occasional needs” to cope with any changes during the pandemic, adding that he would not rule out the possibility that the remaining balance could be returned to the public coffers “if the situation gets better”.

The government’s first round of 10-billion-pataca financial support measures that were rolled out in early 2022 primarily benefited businesses and the local working population, including freelancers, while the second round of its 10-billion-pataca financial support measures, which was launched later in the same year, aimed to enable all other local residents who were not covered by the first-round measures to also benefit from its COVID-19-induced financial support drive. 

Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong speaks during yesterday’s Q&A session in the Legislative Assembly’s (AL) hemicycle. – Photo courtesy of TDM