Accountability for information

IF GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY IS A YARDSTICK for gauging the quality of governance, very few local governments, or even many central government departments, measure up to even the lowest standard required when it comes to the disclosure of information to the public.

A report on government transparency released by the Chinese Academy of Sciences shows that only 10 percent of the 55 central government departments meet the lowest requirement; and of the 31 governments in provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, only seven do.

In a typical case, a staff member of a non-governmental organization filed 320 applications for information from 31 governments at the provincial level. She merely wanted to know the number of prostitutes, whoremongers and drug addicts who had been placed in mandatory correction. But she either got no response at all or was told that such information could not be disclosed to the public.