New rules on dismissing public servants trigger debate

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-12-03 16:17

BEIJING -- New rules outlining how a civil servant can be sacked have drawn criticism from the public, along with praise for a reform that is much needed in China's political system.

A candidate shows her admit card for national civil service exam in Hefei, Anhui Province, November 30, 2008. About 775,000 people are competing for 13,566 government jobs this year. [Xinhua]

China's state bureau of civil servants on Tuesday, stipulated that civil servants, who were evaluated as "incompetent" for two consecutive years in the annual assessment, would be dismissed.

The bureau said those "whose ideological and political quality is relatively bad, whose working ability cannot meet the requirement of their jobs, whose dereliction of duty caused serious losses and had a bad social impact, or who behaved without a sense of responsibility to their work" were "incompetent".

A netizen from Shanghai hailed the regulations.

"Great! The posts of civil servants are no longer 'iron bowls' (food, housing and welfare provisions). Those who failed to do their jobs should get out as soon as possible," read the post.

However, many of the others were not so optimistic.

"It's difficult to say whether the regulations would be well implemented as there is no efficient supervision system and independent third party evaluation," wrote another post.

The direct superior officials of each civil servant are in charge of giving advice on the evaluation, which will be finally decided by the officials in charge of the whole department or an assessment committee.

Zhu Lijia, professor of the National School of Administration, said it's the first time that China has drawn up detailed regulations on the assessment of civil servants after the country's law on civil servant took effect on January 1, 2006.

However, he criticized the standards, saying they should be made more practical and impersonal.

"Or it would all depend on the officials' will," he said.

Gao Jingyi, a civil servant working with a state department, said the detailed regulations were a step forward from previous law.

"It will help improve our work effectiveness under the threat of being dismissed if the regulations can be well implemented," he said.

However, he also said the regulations were not practical enough.

"For example, I cannot tell from the regulations whether I would be evaluated as less competent if I ask for leave on one occasion," he said.

On one of China's biggest websites, www.sina.com.cn, more than 1500 netizens made their comments on the issue.

Despite of the new rules, a government job was still considered a stable post, compared with those in private sectors in face of the global financial crisis.

A total of 775,000 people took a nationwide exam in 38 cities of China to qualify for 13,500 posts as national civil servants on Sunday.