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Ren Yuqi, an entrepreneur from Central China's Hunan Province,
has "paid" to gain a persuasive say at the annual March meeting of
the National People's Congress (NPC).
The lawmaker talked his way to Beijing, the seat of NPC, along a
route where he conducted firsthand investigations into 50
impoverished rural townships in Hunan, Guangdong and Fujian
provinces between mid-December and end of last month.
The trip took him two and a half months and 100,000 yuan
(US$12,048). As a result, Ren and his team visited 300 farming
households and got first-hand information about how farmers were
fared and what they aspired to do.
"People elected me as an NPC deputy last year, and now that what
happen in cities is easy to understand, I wanted to go to the
remote countryside to see how government's rural policies work,"
Ren, a resident in Hunan's Xiangtan City, said Tuesday.
National legislators are statutorily entitled to supervise
government work and put forth motions. They are also obliged to
listen to and forward the people's complaints and opinions to
central authorities.
Ren, a successful real estate developer, reserved a special
budget for his plan of seeing rural areas with his own eyes.
To prepare for the second session of the 10th NPC this month,
Ren and his 10-person team began their look into rural regions of
14 prefectures and cities in Hunan, and 20 townships in Guangdong
and Fujian in December.
Based on their fact-finding, Ren was able to come up with
hundreds of pages of documents illustrated by nearly 200 pictures
depicting debt-laden township governments, schools with dangerous
classrooms and arable land encroached on by non-farming
projects.
Accordingly, the lawmaker put forward a dozen motions, urging
the government to heed the plight of impoverished farmers unable to
support their children's schooling and to waive the apparently
unreasonable fees that are draining rural residents' wallets.
On Sunday, Ren made a presentation about actual rural situations
based on his investigations, especially those concerning grassroots
government operations and farmers incomes. It was at a panel
discussion attended by Vice-President Zeng Qinghong at the Great
Hall of the People.
"In addition to submitting motions to the NPC, I gave some of my
findings and comments -- including the pictures -- to the
vice-president after the discussion," Ren said. "I'll wait to see
if my work will bring some changes to farmers.
"As a saying goes, 'no investigation, no right to speak.' I will
work to the last minute in my tenure as an NPC deputy to speak for
the people based on investigations," he said.
(China Daily March 10, 2004)
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