By Ni Siyi, Wang Cong
A deadly landslide triggered by the collapse of an illegal mining dump has cost the jobs of a string of Party and government officials in Shanxi Province, with the latest casualty being Governor Meng Xuenong and Vice Governor Zhang Jianmin.
The deadly incident is the latest man-made disaster in the province, which is reaping the benefit of abundant energy and metal resources. Unfortunately it also reaps the negative side of development: an annual harvest of work safety accidents caused by lax provincial government supervision and the mine owners' blind pursuit of profits.
A resident in Xiangfen, where the landslide has killed at least 254 people, told Xinhua: "The local government has been busy changing officials after each accident, but nothing will change."
Hopefully, this time could be different, since the new acting governor Wang Jun, 56, serves as director of the State Administration of Work Safety.
"With expertise in work safety, the appointment of Wang is expected to bring about real changes to the province which has been plagued by work place disasters every year," said Wu Jiang, professor of government administration and president of the Chinese Academy of Personnel Science.
Governor Wang has been in the coal mine industry since he was young, and became head of the Datong Coal Mine Bureau of Shanxi Province in 1995.
The unprecedented and swift removals of a governor and vice governor on Sunday show the tough-handed approach of the Chinese government toward the issue of constant work safety problems, Wu said.
In fact, this was not the first time that Mr. Meng Xuenong has fell from grace. He was made mayor of Beijing in January 2003 but was sacked from the post for failing to respond properly to SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) crisis in April the same year.
Wang Yukai, a professor with National School of Administration, told Xinhua in an interview that Meng may not be directly related to the dump collapse in Shanxi Province, but he "should be held accountable for his leadership role."
"Some people may take it as a bad luck for Mr. Meng, but it is nothing personal against him." Profession Wang said, noting that the punishment has been provided for by the law and it is a clear-cut message that government officials must be responsible for people's lives.
According to Professor Wu Jiang, the installation of the new local government leadership must also be an explicit indication that the central government wants to find an enduring measure to solve the issue for the whole industry.
With the introduction of the "people first" concept to the Communist Party of China and a series of laws and regulations on emergency response taking effect, the general work safety situation in the country has been steadily improving, with much fewer deaths reported each year.
The total work place deaths in 2007 were 12.9 percent down from the previous year. But the figure still stood at 98,340, which was rather huge compared with the world average.
Legal and administrative experts blame lax government law enforcement as the root cause of the still constant work place disasters in Shanxi Province and the nation as a whole.
"The former work safety bureau director of Xiangfen had complained that he pointed out the danger of the mining waste dump to its business owner, but no one listened," Professor Wu said.
"I have every reason to believe that the new governor Wang Jun, who is director of the State Administration of Work Safety, should find the way to make the business community in Shanxi listen," Professor Wu said.
To address the work safety issue, more should be done than the massive replacements of Party and government officials.
First, the mechanism for the assessment of Party and government officials must be improved to hold them accountable for the implementation of work safety measures before any accident takes place.
Second, the public should be educated on work safety and mobilized to supervise the implementation of safety rules.
"Provincial governors and mayors are not enough to deal with social management and the market economy, they should rely on the public."
"Government transparency is not a gift to the people. It's real purpose is for the government to get feedback from the people," he said, adding that the same is true with the work safety issue.
There are high hopes that the new governor of Shanxi Province will try his hand in his professional field, and in the social management field as well, in order to turn the resources-rich province into a safe place to live and work.
(Xinhua News Agency September 14, 2008)