The cultivation of good ethics and clean governance at the
grassroots level in rural areas is imperative for the effective
implementation of Party policy, a top graft buster said
yesterday.
Liu Xirong, deputy secretary of the Central Commission for
Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China (CPC), said
in a written release that certain problems are most acute in rural
areas.
"Some rural officials have little sense of the law. They deal
with things in an unfair way and even abuse their power for
personal gain," he said.
"They (the problems) will affect the implementation of the
Party's policy and threaten the stability of the grassroots
regime," he said.
Liu's comments were released ahead of the Party's 17th National
Congress that starts next month.
Analysts said his words are indicative of the Party's growing
concern over the behavior of some of its rural officials, who
represent some 750 million farmers.
"Grassroots Party committees and cadres are at the frontline of
the rural economic, political and social development issues facing
farmers," Liu said.
Their actions will directly affect the authority of the Party
among the masses and decide the success or failure of the country's
strategy to construct a "new socialist countryside", he said.
A number of cases involving officials behaving badly have been
identified recently, Liu said.
Earlier this year, in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, more than
1,200 cadres were punished after they were found to have occupied
land belonging to local farmers, Liu said.
Also this year, in Shaanxi Province, an investigation was
undertaken into dubious accounting and unreasonable expenditure of
more than 11 million yuan (US$1.4 million) in some 8,000
villages.
Liu said the government will continue to crack down on any
activities that harm farmers' interests, like the arbitrary
collection of education fees, illicit land acquisitions or the
embezzlement of special agricultural funds.
There are more than 30,000 township Party committees across the
country and more than 30 million rural Party members
nationwide.
(China Daily September 20, 2007)