Accountability stressed by NPC

Source:

03-12-2006 14:04

Government accountability is one topic that's sparked much debate among legislators and policy-makers at the NPC session. Our reporter Mao Xuzhi examines how the Chinese government is trying to build a stronger system of accountability.

In early December last year, the State Council approved the resignation of the former head of China's State Administration of Environmental Protection for dereliction of duty. That decision followed the contamination of the Songhua River in Northeast China. He became the first ministerial-level official to resign after China's top legislature enacted a law governing civil servants in April last year.

The phrase "government accountability" is becoming a fashionable term in the modern Chinese political glossary. Public opinion regards the mechanism as a sign of the government's resolve to improve transparency through supervision. The term is especially linked to industrial accidents, such as mining disasters.

At the on-going session of the National People's Congress, the head of the work safety watchdog said the responsibility mechanism will be backed up by a control quota system.

Li Yizhong, director of State Admin. of Work Safety, said: "The first thing is to implement the accountability system, in which leading government officials and enterprise owners are held responsible. We will also implement the control quota mechanism and make officials and entrepreneurs well aware of their performance in their posts."

The system requires efforts to bring the overall death toll in various kinds of accidents in China down by 3 percent this year. In particular, the human death toll for each 1 million tons of coal produced should be capped to within 2.6 this year.

In his government work report to national legislators on Sunday, Premier Wen Jiabao expressed the government's resolve to punish irresponsible officials.

Wen said: "We will conduct in-depth investigations into cases of dereliction of duty and corruption related to production safety, and severely punish those responsible."

To make its policies more transparent, national and local government departments now have to employ spokespersons to provide information to the public. Currently the 70 ministerial departments of the government have their own spokespersons to answer questions on their official work and provide feed-back for decision-makers.

The concept of accountability grew in 2003, when officials were sacked for negligence during the SARS epidemic. And as legislators seek ways to create a more transparent government, officials are getting the message that the good old days of getting away with irresponsible decision-making are disappearing.

Editor:Wang Ping