Editorials

Severe penalties needed

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-10 07:53

Why do some local governments spend beyond their means on huge construction projects? Are the leaders of these local governments so sanguine as to think they would not be blamed if these projects fail?

In the most recent such case, Qingshuihe County in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which has yearly revenues of only 30 million yuan ($4.4 million), invested 6 billion yuan in building a new county seat 10 years ago.

Now, the project has been abandoned due to lack of funds.

The project has drained the poor county of its meager resources, and the unfinished structures will stand desolately unless more money flows in.

The insensible decision notwithstanding, the local government had launched the project sans approval from higher authorities.

The issue now is not whether local government officials will get punished or not for causing huge economic losses, but how severe the penalties would be.

Disciplinary censures, such as termination from service, warnings and expulsion from the Party are some of the ways by which quite many government leaders have been held accountable for past misdeeds.

These are not so severe. Hence, officials continue to blunder. Yet, the increasing audacity with which such bungles are being committed is undermining government credibility.

(China Daily 05/10/2010 page8)