Notorious for the fatal coal mine blast that killed 105 miners
early this month, the city of Linfen has announced an open
recruitment of an official nationwide to head its coal industry
bureau.
The obvious intention to look for a competent official to
overhaul the problematic coal industry of the city in the country's
coal producing province of Shanxi is understandable.
The mine where the workers were killed had all the certificates
issued by the local administration authorities for production, but
it was accused of having a wide range of irregularities and even
violations in its production and workplace safety management. This
explains how chaotic the management of the coal industry is in the
city.
The city mayor has already been dismissed and 11 officials are
being investigated for their possible involvement in illegally
issuing production and work safety certificates to the mine.
Undoubtedly, there is more than enough reason to overhaul the
entire coal management system to introduce a workable mechanism
that will effectively tighten management of the local mines and put
its entire working process under proper order to overcome its
vulnerability to bribes.
A competent leader is necessary for the sector. It seems that
the local government is placing a high expectation on that official
whose decisions will have a decisive effect on the future of its
coal industry, which has a total production capacity of 50 million
tons a year.
If this be the case, the former head would have been very
incompetent and should be sued for dereliction of duty.
Far from knowing enough of the truth about its complicated,
problematic coal industry management, we still have enough reason
to believe it will not be easy to appoint a competent person to
tidy up the industry's irregularities and unhealthy tendencies.
We do not know whether the local government has taken other
steps to clear up the whole system. If it has not, we can hardly
believe the new leader will be able to rebuild the system. If it
has, it will be good for the new leader, who must have no vested
interests, to do a proper job of overhauling the industry.
(China Daily December 27, 2007)
