The Macau government says it is abolishing a controversial system of land swaps that allowed developers holding a piece of land in one district to trade it for a plot in another zone.
The move is being widely interpreted as part of the fall out from the trial for corruption of Ao Man Long, a former Macau Secretary for Transport and Public Works, who was jailed for 27 years after being found guilty in January of 40 counts of bribe taking. He was unable to account for personal wealth equivalent to USD100 million.
The land swap system has featured in several casino projects as well as general real estate development, though there is no suggestion that developers who were party to land swap deals were themselves offering bribes or inducements to officials.
In 2006 Stanley Ho used a land swap deal to acquire a piece of land on the Cotai Strip™ by trading it for one that his Hong Kong-listed shipping and property conglomerate Shun Tak Group held on nearby Taipa.
One of the criticisms levelled at land swaps was a perception of a disparity in value between the originally held site and the new one, leading to claims that the government was using executive powers to do ‘favours’ for entrepreneurs without proper scrutiny by the legislature.
“Under the old land-swapping system, many conspiracy theories developed,” Mr Edmund Ho said in his annual policy address last week.
