The Commission of Audit (CA) has just finished conducting a performance audit on the greening works of the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (hereinafter referred to by its Portuguese acronym IACM). The audit also constituted the first environ¬mental audit carried out by CA. The audit covered the overall planning of green areas and places in Macau, the programming of the current greening works and also the situation of some projects implemented by the IACM. The audit aims to find out whether the greening works carried out by IACM have margin for improvement and whether the public money has been applied adequately, and then, according to the actual findings, presents opinions and suggestions for improvement.

1.1 Audit findings and opinions

1.1.1 Legislation and institutional coordination on urban and on green areas planning

The urban planning and management in Macau are still in their beginnings. The lack of specific and adequate legislation and coordinating structures for urban overall planning reduces the intervention in greenings to individual zones or building projects, without coordination among them. In fact, the departments responsible for planning and building green areas and places ask for the opinion of IACM only when they consider the works that are going to initiate may affect the green zones and places; besides, IACM’s opinion is not binding. The deficient legal framework doesn’t incentivate the competent public departments to pay due attention in programming the greening works.

1.1.2 Specific legislation on green zones and places

Macau has no specific and adequate legislation on green zones and places. The “General Regulation of Public Places”, which cover most of the greening works carried out by IACM, are not a regulation enacted specifically for regulating the management of green areas and places; the regulation doesn’t offer much protection to trees either. The dispositions in them on greening are not enough and are not specific enough. IACM is aware that laws are very important for protecting trees and, in fact, it had presented 3 sets of instructions, as a provisory solution. However, from 2007 up, more than 3 years passed by, and there’s nothing concrete yet.

1.1.3 Management of greening works

After reviewing the performance of IACM in greening works planning and the functioning of the “Working group for coordinating trees control and protection actions”, it has been concluded that IACM has no overall plan for greening works and pays no attention to operational details of the daily works, which reveals a weak managerial awareness towards the greening works.

1.1.4 Delegated responsibility of IACM on trees protection

The measures taken by IACM to protect and maintain old trees are ineffective. The lack of initiative makes evident IACM is not much motivated in fulfilling his delegated responsibility in trees’ protection.

1.1.5 Effectiveness and efficiency in greening works

1.1.5.1 Setting up and implementing the trees maintenance and management system

In 2003, IACM bought a consultancy service for developing a “trees management and maintenance system”, aiming to register all the trees in Macau, and to integrate the data into the management of the daily works. However, up to April 2010, a big number of trees was yet to be registered and, on the other hand, people had been using the system just for information searching. In fact, the actual situation shows the project was far from its objectives.

1.1.5.2 Trees inspection

The “frontline inspectors” (including public roads greening teams, workers attached to parks and gardens and the outsource companies) possess no professional and systematic training. In fact, these inspectors are able to solve problems detectable by visual methods, but with plagues and diseases not visible to naked eye (e.g. rotten roots and problems caused by termites) they are powerless. The “trees managers” do carry out non-periodical inspections in order to detect non-visible diseases, but these inspections follow no specific standards, are not properly monitored and are not frequent enough. In fact, in recent years, the inspection was not able to avoid various incidents of falling trees, precisely because the inspectors were not able detecting the diseases affecting the trees in time. The inspection routine and procedures are deficient.

1.1.5.3 Acquisition and usage of the radio detector

The preliminary research on the radio detector was not careful enough so that the inadequacy of the instrument became obvious only during the operations. The detector is not suitable to the most abundant species in Macau as well as to the old trees. Moreover, the collected data must be sent to England for analysis, which takes long periods.

1.1.5.4 Processing of statistical data on green areas and places

IACM committed errors and omissions in chain when processing statistical data related to green areas and places and was not aware that the figures it provided to “Environment Statistics” were wrong. The fact reflects IACM was not careful enough in the preparation and control of statistical information. In addition, information released by IACM itself are not accompanied by explanations on concepts applied, on the basis used for calculations and on the adjustments introduced from time to time, which presents an erroneous overview of Macau’s green areas and places.

1.1.6 Delivery of documentation required for the auditing

IACM handed the documents required for the audit process repeatedly beyond the agreed deadlines, with the justification that it needed time to locate them or because the administrative procedure or the distribution process impeded an earlier delivery. Besides the belated delivery, the documents eventually furnished were incomplete and part of them even edited. The facts revealed that IACM has no archive and documentation system.

1.2 Commission of Audit’s suggestions

1.2.1 An interdepartmental coordination structure should be established in order to improve communication between the departments in charge of planning and building green infrastructures, on one side, and, on the other, the departments that manage them; and to promote the enactment of legislation for an institutional framework on urban planning, in which the content and objectives of the green areas and places are defined, the involved departments identified and the respective powers and duties assigned.

1.2.2 Legislation on green areas and places should be enacted and for such purpose a working schedule should be laid down.

1.2.3 IACM should establish an overall and long term plan for the greening works as well as detailed execution programmes in order to raise the management quality. IACM should also improve the management of its archives and documentation works.

1.2.4 Concrete execution programmes should be established in order to speed up the legislative process in regard of trees protection; clear criteria for classification of old trees should also be laid down and effective measures to protect and maintain them should be taken.

1.2.5 Efforts should be made to achieve the objectives that lead to the set up of the “trees management and maintenance system” and deadlines should be laid down for the data updating, in order to improve trees management.

1.2.6 The trees inspection routine and its oversight should be reviewed and improved, the inspectors’ training should be enhanced and instructions on how to conduct examinations on trees should be laid down, with a view to making the examinations standardized, in-depth and of quality.

1.2.7 Any acquisition of instruments should be preceded by comprehensive and thorough research.

1.2.8 Criteria for statistical information preparation should be harmonized, concepts and calculations basis used for the preparation should be presented clearly, and revision procedures should be laid down.

1.2.9 The present management system of archives and documentation should be completely reassessed with the view to setting up an adequate and appropriate archives system to register and safeguard all relevant documentation.