Society

Residents vote committee members out in E China

By Zhang Jiawei (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-12-13 14:32

More than 2,000 unsatisfied residents in Shandong organized a vote and dismissed all nine members of their neighborhood committee on Dec 6, after their repeated requests for financial disclosure were turned down, China National Radio reported.

The gate of the East Garden community. [Photo/cnr.cn]

Residents in the East Garden community in Jinan, built from a village several years ago, were suspicious about where the public money went and had been asking the neighborhood committee to make financial disclosures, which were repeatedly rejected.

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"We shouldn't have paid any money (for the houses) when we turned our village into this community, but we did," said Du Wenhai, one of the leaders who organized the vote.

"There are more than 200 excessive houses after the community was built, and now they say the houses were sold at market prices," Du said. "But when asked about how much money the houses were sold for and who bought them, the committee never gave an answer."

China National Radio cited Du as saying there were many other problems concerning financial disclosure, but it didn't elaborate.

On Nov 17, under pressure from the residents, the committee promised to reveal some financial details. But the next day, when residents went for the results, they not only got nothing, but were blamed for blocking roads.

Residents finally lost their patience talking with the committee and went to the Dongfeng sub-district office, the community's supervising authority, to apply for a vote.

The vote started on Dec 6, and 2,412 of 2,427 voters agreed to dismiss the neighborhood committee.

The sub-district office on Dec 7 installed nine people to take over the committee's work. But to residents' dismay, seven of them were those who were just voted down.

Zheng Qingjiang from the sub-district office said they need the committee's previous members to help with the daily work for the time being, and a new committee will be formed within three months.

"Everything should go according to procedure, and now we are working hard to get things clear," Zheng said.