(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-11-05 07:03

Transparency is the name of the game when it comes to using public funds such as road maintenance fees, says an editorial in Jiangnan Metropolis News. The following is an excerpt:

A recent report by Xinhua News Agency said the audit department of Zhejiang Province had found that road maintenance fees collected by the provincial administrative department of communications had been spent on a variety of items that did not involve maintaining roads. Some of the funds had even gone to covering the department's operating costs.

Every car owner pays the annual fee in good faith, assuming their money is being used to keep old roads in good shape or to construct new ones.

News of the audit report's findings left many people wondering about the true scale of issue. How much of the road maintenance fees had been misused or even embezzled? Has the money spent on road maintenance been used efficiently and properly? How about the situation in other localities?

People have heard that the road maintenance fee is to be written off and that a fuel tax will take its place. But this remains a rumor.

The maintenance and construction of roads are public services. They should be paid for with money drawn from State coffers.

At the moment, the communications department, rather than the tax authorities, collects road maintenance fees. It also has the right to waive the fee, to punish those who delay or refuse to pay and to decide how to use the money.

Worse, the huge sums involved - at least 100 billion yuan ($13.2 billion) every year - are not included in the budget. In other words, the money is not subject to the scrutiny of legislators, much less the public.

To prevent the further misuse of public money, we need more transparency, either by including the road maintenance fee in the public budget or by adopting the fuel tax as soon as possible.

(China Daily 11/05/2007 page4)