State Council targets irresponsible local govt actions

The General Office of the State Council issued a circular on Nov 14, targeting irresponsible behaviors of some local authorities discovered in its ongoing sixth nationwide inspection, aimed at promoting the implementation of the central government’s major policies.

These behaviors, including negligence, dereliction of duty, and laziness, have hurt the interests of local enterprises and people, said the circular.

One prominent issue related to civil affair services. The police station of Chenguantun town, Jinghai district, in North China’s Tianjin municipality, arbitrarily added procedures to the residence permit application, making an applicant wait for 11 months, to no avail.

Another earlier but similar case occurred in Zhenxiong county, Zhaotong city, Southwest China’s Yunnan province. Due to sloppy work across local government agencies shirking their duties, an applicant for the forest rights certificate still failed to get it even after trying for 11 years.

Some local governments disturbed the administrative approval process through intentional preconditions. Yingze district transport bureau, managed under Taiyuan city, North China’s Shanxi province, refused to pass passenger vehicles in an annual vehicle inspection unless intelligent video monitoring systems had been installed on such vehicles.

The province’s neighbor, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, also saw approval mismanagement. In Hulunbuir city, the Hailar district bureau for city administration and law enforcement unlawfully required waste treatment fees from businesses before permitting them to place outdoor billboards.

In addition, education-related problems associated with insufficient government supervision were also worthy of attention. For some vocational schools in Southwest China’s Guizhou province, school-enterprise cooperation was used as an excuse for gaining improper benefits from students. Farther south, in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, some schools of the same nature also harmed the interests of students by organizing internship programs in violation of related rules.

The local authorities have actively taken measures to correct those problems. And departments and officials failing to assume their responsibilities have been held accountable. The State Council will ramp up its efforts to follow up on their rectification to meet the requirements by the executive meeting on Oct 23.