The CCAC has released the “Investigation Report on the Fire Shutters of Edifício do Bairro da Ilha Verde”, where it points out that the it did not find any evidence in the comprehensive investigation that any departments or authorities had committed any illegal acts in the additional works to replace the fire shutters of Edifício do Bairro da Ilha Verde or that violation of the principle of legality in the procedures of award of the relevant works existed. The prices also conformed to the market standards at that time. Therefore, there was no obvious sign of administrative illegality or impropriety. However, the CCAC questioned the necessity of replacing the fire shutters as the relevant departments or authorities were not found to have endeavoured to look for solutions through other channels. As a result, the newly installed fire shutters worth over MOP4 million were wasted. The CCAC also criticised that this issue significantly reflected the problem of coordination and cooperation among public departments. The Housing Bureau (IH) failed to strictly perform its role of coordination as vested by the Economic Housing Law. Also, the Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT) and the Fire Services Bureau (CB) had all along failed to inform the Infrastructure Development Office (GDI) or the IH concerning their practice on the standard of fire resistance class of fire shutters. Moreover, the DSSOPT and the CB never notified the GDI that a replacement proposal could be adopted to meet the legal requirements of fire safety. It seemed that the construction project of Edifício do Bairro da Ilha Verde was completed in an unorganised manner in such phases as vetting and approval, construction and rectification. Relevant departments or entities had a lack of knowledge of the law concerning their own competences. Moreover, they adopted different attitudes at work and lacked communication among the departments, resulting in situations of “information islands”. Such circumstance is worth attention of the relevant departments and the SAR Government.

Between the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019, the fire shutters at the underground car park and the podium of the economic housing complex “Edifício do Bairro da Ilha Verde” failed to meet the relevant requirements and thus did not pass the inspection and acceptance. Upon interdepartmental working meetings, it was decided that 100 fire shutters would be replaced. The cost of the relevant works amounted to over MOP12 million. The incident widely aroused social concerns and sparked queries as to whether illicit acts were involved. The CCAC was therefore very concerned about it and started to receive complaints and opinions from residents and different groups consecutively. In response, the CCAC placed the case on file for an inquiry and even commenced a comprehensive investigation at a later time so as to carry out a profound investigation. During the investigation, the CCAC obtained a multitude of documents and information from the IH, the DSSOPT, the GDI, the CB and private entities. In addition, it listened to the statements of directorships, leaderships, senior management officers and personnel of the relevant administrative authorities. It also examined and analysed if there were any illicit acts or administrative illegality or impropriety.

The CCAC pointed out that in accordance with the Fire Safety Regulation, the fire shutters used in buildings should have fire and thermal insulation functions. From the vetting and approval process for the construction plan for Edifício do Bairro da Ilha Verde and the documents such as quotation of the materials of the fire shutters, opinions raised by the GDI or the CB against the fire shutters to be used were not seen. In the construction process, the CB never clearly indicated any opinions regarding thermal insulation in the Opinions on fire safety it made. In fact, the CB and the DSSOPT did not bring up the relevant problem until the completion of installation of all the fire shutters approved to be used as well as the construction works.

The CCAC found in the investigation that in as early as February 2017, the DSSOPT and the CB reached a consensus that the requirement for thermal insulation of the fire shutters could be satisfied through an alternative plan on condition that the conditions of escape and inhibition of the spread of fire were not poorer than the original ones. However, after the two bureaux brought up the problem concerning the fire shutters, they did not give the GDI any other option except making the request for replacement of the fire shutters. The CCAC considered that since the GDI replaced the fire shutters for the purpose of having the Edifício do Bairro da Ilha Verde construction project complied with the Fire Safety Regulation, the decision complied with the principle of legality. The DSSOPT and the CB allowed the sector to adopt alternative measure in practice, but they still required the GDI to replace the fire shutters. In this sense, the rationality of the decision was inevitably in doubt.

Concerning the award of the replacement works contract to the contractor of the construction project, the CCAC considered that since the inspection and acceptance of the Edifício do Bairro da Ilha Verde construction project could not be completed following its completion, it is reasonable that the fire shutters replacement works were considered as supplementary or additional works of the construction project. Moreover, since the contractor had not yet left the project at that time and its familiarity with the architectural drawing of the building and the installation of the fire shutters gave it an advantage, the relevant problem would be solved quicker and more properly. Meanwhile, according to the market survey conducted by the CCAC, the price of an electrically operated fire shutter with single guide rail or two guide rails with fire and thermal insulation functions available in Macao ranged from MOP5,000 to MOP8,000 per square meter. In comparison with the prices quoted by the contractor in 2018, the CCAC did not find any unreasonable difference between the quoted prices and the market prices. Therefore, the CCAC could not find any illegality or any other kinds of administrative illegality or irregularity in the award of the additional works contract made by the GDI.

Nevertheless, the CCAC considered that the IH and the GDI were not clear about their respective competences and functions regarding construction of economic housing buildings. The Economic Housing Law empowers the IH to supervise and coordinate the construction of economic housing buildings, which means that the bureau’s role and function have been transformed from that of a user or the representative of users into the one who promotes economic housing construction. However, in the entire process of the construction of Edifício do Bairro da Ilha Verde, the IH and even the GDI, which was responsible for inspection of the execution of the works, did not actively take any action or measure to cooperate with each other. The personnel of the two bureaux only treated the IH as a user. In fact, the GDI has undertaken the responsibilities of inspection, supervision and coordination of the works.

According to the investigation of the CCAC, before April 2017, the materials of fire shutters or fire doors in all buildings in Macao were only guaranteed to be with fire insulation function while thermal insulation function was not compulsorily required. This is because the CB considered that it is unlikely that thermal energy may cause chances of catching fire through fire shutters or fire doors. The DSSOPT also compared the relevant regulations of Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and Portugal, where it found that it is generally acceptable that fire shutters or fire doors have only fire insulation function but no thermal insulation function. However, this does not hinder Macao from adopting more strict standards. At the end of 2016, the Urbanisation Department of the DSSOPT changed the standard for inspection and acceptance of fire shutters. It requested the owner of a private construction project to submit information to prove that the fire shutters used in the building had thermal insulation function, or else the project would not pass the inspection and acceptance. In February 2017, the representatives of the Urbanisation Department and the CB had meetings and reached a consensus to instruct the sector to implement alternative plans through guidelines. According to the plans, the conditions of escape and inhibition of the spread of fire should not be poorer than the original ones or else the projects would not pass the inspection and acceptance. However, the Urbanisation Department had not given any concrete guidelines to realise the said consensus for a long time. It even did not notify the Public Construction Department, another department of DSSOPT, to standardise the practices adopted by the bureau. As a result, the standard of fire resistance class of fire shutters was not applied to some of the public construction projects. In addition, the DSSOPT never updated other public departments including the GDI on the standard, causing the problem concerning the fire shutters in Edifício do Bairro da Ilha Verde.

The CCAC also pointed out that, in the course of constructing economic housing buildings, Opinions from the CB or the CB’s inspection report including the fire resistance test of fire shutters should be obtained according to the law. However, the CB had all along believed that its Opinions were not binding, such that the implementation of the regulations of fire resistance class of fire shutters should fall within the powers of the DSSOPT and the CB itself should only play the role of cooperation. Therefore, it never expressly gave its opinions in its Opinions or inspection reports. In the reply to the GDI given by the CB concerning the Opinion on the fire resistance test report on the materials of the fire shutters of Edifício do Bairro da Ilha Verde in April 2018 and the inspection report concerning the inspection of the social facilities at the podium of that building in October, the CB just indicated such opinions on the materials of fire resistance class respectively: “therefore the DSSOPT’s opinion is necessary” and “therefore the competent department’s opinion is necessary”. After investigation, it was ascertained that the staff of the DSSOPT, as usual, considered the aforesaid indications as “the fire shutters were without the function of thermal insulation”. It then, in the meeting held with the CB, the IH and the GDI on 7^th November 2018, indicated that the fire shutters in the building could not pass the inspection and acceptance because they lacked thermal insulation function and requested the GDI to replace all of them. However, in another economic housing project of Edifício Fai Ieng where inspection was carried out nearly during the same period, despite fire shutters without the function of thermal insulation were also installed, the CB, as usual, neither carried out an inspection nor indicated the statement “therefore the competent department’s opinion is necessary” in its inspection report on the ground that it had not received any information concerning the fire resistance test of fire shutters from the GDI. The Urbanisation Department of the DSSOPT immediately understood that the CB had no intention to cast doubt on the thermal insulation function of the fire shutters in the inspection procedure of Edifício Fai Ieng, and thus issued the use license to the economic housing building.

The CCAC believed that the CB’s interpretation of the provisions of the Fire Safety Regulation, particularly on whether the fire shutters conformed to the legal requirements, was certainly authoritative. Despite there was not any stipulation in the legislation in force about the opinions given by the CB to be binding, pursuant to Paragraph 7 of Article 7 of the regulation, according to the general law, appeal could be lodged against the decision of issuance of licence by the DSSOPT which was based on the opinions of the CB. It could be seen that such opinions were not completely without binding or external effect. In addition, the Fire Safety Regulation does not compulsorily require car parks to be divided into fire compartments and to install fire shutters. It was the public works and fire safety departments that had reached a consensus on applying stricter requirements. Since the competent authorities decided to adopt stricter standards for the purpose of protecting life and property of residents, they should have communicated well and shared information with all the departments or parties involved for the issues they had reached consensus on so as to avoid the situations of “information islands” due to lack of communication among the departments. However, the said situation had caused that the fire resistance performance of the fire shutters in question was brought up as late as when Edifício do Bairro da Ilha Verde was subject to the building inspection and completion inspection.

In the final part of the report, the CCAC expressed that it was pleased to know that at an earlier time the SAR Government listed the Legal Regime for Fire Safety in Buildings and Premises as one of the draft laws for the 2020 fiscal year, where the competences of the DSSOPT and the CB will be re-defined and the CB will be vested with the powers of supervision and punishment in the field of fire safety. Also, the CCAC suggested that all departments or at least their senior management personnel should pay due regard to the legislation of their departments or authorities and even consider adopting appropriate measures to carry out law popularisation and training internally. Also, to comply with the principles and spirit of protecting life and property of residents enshrined in the Fire Safety Regulation, the CB should recognise its own professional authority, act as a tight gatekeeper by fully looking into the fire safety issues in building construction and give opinions on fire safety to the relevant departments clearly and accurately. With regard to law enforcement standards and change of handling methods related to construction works, the DSSOPT should effectively notify the sector or the departments involved of the relevant information so as to increase the transparency and maintain the consistence of law enforcement. With regard to the handling of fire resistance classes of fire shutters, the DSSOPT and the CB should announce it internally and to the public after reaching a consensus. It should strengthen communication with its subordinate departments and must regularly share information with the sector and other departments or authorities involved in construction works. At last, the CCAC hoped that the SAR Government would draw on the experience from the situations reflected in the case and take the deliberation of the new law as an opportunity to cultivate the awareness of interdepartmental coordination and cooperation. All departments should communicate proactively and never restrict themselves to just performing their own powers and scope of activities. Instead, they should bear in mind the attitude of impartiality and take the whole situation into consideration in order to properly handle public affairs in a concerted effort and maintain public interests.

The report of the CCAC has already been submitted to the Chief Executive. The full report may be downloaded from the CCAC’s website.