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Competent cadres key to building of new countryside
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-03-10 16:49
It is an urgent task to have the country's 5 million village cadres trained
to be honest, clean and competent if China wants to fulfill its ambitious goal
of turning the vast rural regions into a "new socialist countryside," a female
lawmaker from a famous village in North China's Shanxi Province has said.
"The key to building a more developed, civilized and democratic
countryside lies in the competence as well as personal integrity of the village
cadres," Guo Fenglian, village chief of Dazhai Village, Xiyang County of Shanxi,
told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.
The 60-year-old Guo is a deputy
to the Tenth National People's Congress (NPC), China's national legislature now
convening its annual full session in Beijing.
According to a central
government budget report, in 2006 alone, China will spend a total of 339.7
billion yuan (42.46 billion U.S. dollars) on rural development, triggering
worries among some NPC deputies that the huge funds might be misused or
intercepted by cadres at various levels before reaching farmers.
Guo, a
model farmer in the 1960s when China's late Chairman Mao Zedong made Dazhai a
prototype of rural development for other Chinese villages, has now become a
successful businesswoman running 10 village companies.
"Last year the
per capita annual income of Dazhai villagers reached 5,500 yuan (687 U.S.
dollars), much higher than the national average of 3,255 yuan (407 dollars),"
said a proud Guo.
"Dazhai's success story has proved that only when the
village cadres have a good understanding of the market economy and have some
good ideas about development, could a village lift itself out of poverty," said
Guo.
China's 900 million farmers in 680,000 "administrative villages, "
or large villages which may consist of several smaller villages, have gained the
right to directly elect or oust their village heads since 1988, thus gaining a
bigger say in running village affairs.
However, intervention in village
elections by governments at higher levels, corrupt village heads abusing power
or embezzling public money, and the lack of transparency in village management
often undermine rural democracy and even spark rural unrest.
To further
improve the quality of village cadres, the Chinese capital Beijing is now
recruiting "assistants to village chiefs" among university and college
graduates. The 2,000 college graduates who pass the strict selection will get a
monthly pay of 3,000 yuan (375 dollars) on their village posts, media reports
said.
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