Public resources need transparency

Resources such as water, electricity and natural gas can be monopolized by State-owned enterprises to avoid waste. However, many monopoly enterprises use their privilege to charge residents excessively, because the latter as the weaker side have no other choice available. That requires the government to intervene by removing the fees that are without legal support, and the legislature to pass laws prohibiting similar improper fees in the future.

Ningbo Daily, Nov 19

'An additional natural resource fee" is obviously unjust, but the departments and agencies that collect it view it as their untouchable interest. They have decided to collect it without any legislative process, save it in their own account, and spend it without any supervision; the unjust fee is almost their private property that can be used at will. That's essentially why the fees persist even though many reforms have been vowed to remove them.