CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM IN MACAO

Before the Sino-Portuguese agreement on Macao's future was reached in 1987, the civil service in Macao was marked by inefficiency, insufficient training, politicization, corruption, and frequent restructuring. Since 1987, however, the Portuguese administration has begun to implement civil service reform. Reforms introduced include localizing the service, making Chinese an official language, translating Portuguese laws into Chinese, providing training programs, establishing an anti-corruption commissioner, and privatizing public corporations. Despite these attempts at reform, the civil service remains politicized, frequent restructuring creates additional government expenditure, and anti-corruption work is ineffective without the support of politicians. For the modernization of the Macao civil service to become irreversible, the momentum of reform will have to be maintained after 1999, when Macao becomes a Special Administrative Region of mainland China.