The government has appointed Chiang Ngoc Vai, who had been a deputy director of the Transport Bureau (DSAT) since its establishment in 2008, as the bureau’s director effective from yesterday.
Chiang’s one-year appointment has been formalised through an executive order by Secretary for Transport and Public Works Raymond Tam Vai Man published in the Official Gazette (BO) yesterday. Tam signed the order on October 3.
The bureau has two deputy directors in its organisational structure.
Since Kelvin Lam Hin San, who headed the bureau for 10 years, left the post of the bureau’s director in July this year, the bureau’s director position had been left vacant before Chiang’s appointment to his new post started yesterday. During the interim period, Chiang, one of the bureau’s two deputy directors, was the bureau’s acting director.
Lam’s appointment as the bureau’s director was not renewed when it expired on July 21.
Lam became the bureau’s director on July 22, 2015 when his appointment, made by the government’s then secretary for transport and public works Raimundo do Rosário, was scheduled to last one year. Since then, Lam’s appointment had been renewed every year for a year, with the last renewal of his appointment made by Rosário in July last year.
The government did not renew Lam’s appointment “upon his personal request”, according to a notice published in the gazette at that time.
The Transport Bureau was established on May 13, 2008 when Wong Wan was appointed as the bureau’s first director while Chiang was appointed as a deputy director. Lam succeeded Wong in 2015 when the latter resigned from the position.
Lam joined the Macau Civil Aviation Authority (AACM) in 1995 where he had been working until July 2015 when he was appointed as the Transport Bureau’s director.
According to Tam’s executive order published yesterday, Chiang, who holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering, joined the civil service in 1990 when he started to work for the then Lands, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT), where he was promoted to the chief of its Transport Department in 1995, a position he held until May 2008 when he became a deputy director of the then newly established Transport Bureau.
Chiang also holds a bachelor’s degree in Cadastral Surveying and Land Planning.
DSSOPT was replaced by the current Lands and Urban Construction Bureau (DSSCU) in April 2022.
While the transport function of DSSOPT was taken over by the then newly established Transport Bureau, its name, containing the word “transport”, remained unchanged at that time.
As Chiang has now become the Transport Bureau’s director, one of the bureau’s two deputy director positions has been left vacant. The currently serving deputy director is Lei Veng Hong, who took up the post in June 2022.
This file photo shows Chiang Ngoc Vai (right), the Transport Bureau’s (DSAT) then acting director, addressing a press conference last month about the government’s arrangements for the peninsula-Taipa Macau Bridge to remain open during the hoisting of the Tropical Cyclone Signal No.8 (T8). Chiang became the bureau’s director yesterday. – Photo: Tony Wong
