On the one hand, individual localities are doing everything possible to set aside central funds, and on the other hand, there are no detailed examinations and approvals on the projects of the power departments, and the 1.3 billion problem in rural road projects has highlighted the difficulties of the national investment system.
A new round of audit storms pushed the reform of the government investment system to the center of public opinion.
On June 28th, Auditor General Li Jinhua of the National Audit Office mentioned in his report “The Audit of the Implementation of Central Budget and Other Financial Revenues and Expenditure in 2004â€, “Because the management rights of the capital construction projects between the central and local and central departments are not clear enough. The National Development and Reform Commission, as a department of macroeconomic management and control of the national economy, arranges a large number of subsidized investments in special forms for localities. The categories are complex and the projects are small and scattered. They directly involve counties, townships, and villages, and are not conducive to the macroeconomic regulation and control of the national economy by the central government investment. In this audit report, the National Development and Reform Commission was named five times for investment management issues, and became the central ministry with the most identified problems.
“How does the NDRC coordinate the relationship with local governments and ministries and commissions, and it involves the issue of the 'downsizing' of its own functional power. This also reflects some of the deep-seated problems in China’s investment management system.†July 4th, Beijing The NPC representative said.
County and township road construction "only account for no sign"
A new road is passing through Xu Village, and the family’s livelihood has broken the access road.
Zhang Xifeng is a villager in Xucun, Fangli Town, Suihua County, Shaanxi Province. He lives in a family of 6 fruit trees. In April 2005, the reconstruction project for the total budget of 17.5 million yuan and a total length of 35 kilometers of Yaoyao Road (Yunhua County-Yao County) was officially started. The planned road will occupy part of the orchard of Zhang Xifeng, but Zhang was not too worried.
According to Article 47 of the “Law of the State Landâ€, the land cultivated by peasants is occupied not only for the compensation of the land but also for the agricultural products on the land due to road construction and other reasons.
With the progress of the project, Zhang Xifeng’s family of 80 fruit trees was shaved off. The disappointing news that caused Zhang Xifeng to follow is that the county’s compensation standard for the occupied cultivated land is set to be 30 yuan for each fruit tree, 5 yuan for each tree without fruit, and there is no compensation for the cultivated land itself.
“A tree costs three or four hundred pounds of apples a year. Even a dime sold for two cents can earn more than 60 yuan, and the compensation fee is only 30 yuan. It is not possible to plan a visit! Let’s say 80 trees. It took so many years to cut down. What do we eat later?†said Zhang Xifeng.
The case of Zhang Xifeng is not a case in Shaanxi. In March this year, the Audit Commission organized 18 special administrative offices and more than 200 auditing staff. It took one and a half months to carry out special audit investigations on the reconstruction of the county and rural highways in 16 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country. Among the 16 inter-county highways in Shaanxi Xianyang, Baoji, Shangluo, and Ankang, there are 14 projects that do not have compensation for land acquisition and occupy a total area of ​​1,808 mu.
In addition, the problem of illegal land requisition, arrears of construction funds and peasants' land requisition compensation funds is serious. A total of 186 projects were audited, of which 25 projects had illegal land acquisition of 287,000 mu. Nine projects were owed compensation for land acquisition and migrant workers’ wages were 371 million yuan.
The audit report stated that the land compensation, resettlement subsidies, ground attachments and young crop compensation fees paid by some projects to the farmers were significantly lower than the prescribed standards. In some areas, construction projects also violated the rules and allowed farmers to pay labor to compensate local governments for supporting funds. For example, the estimated total investment for the treatment of the major harbor areas in the Huaihe River's Chenzu Bay is 213 million yuan. All the central and provincial funds are in place, and the supporting 10.7 million yuan in cities and counties all allow the farmers to reach the top without compensation.
So take the central funding
"It is not that we have deliberately deducted farmers' compensation for arable land. It is really no money for the government," said an official at the Shaanxi Suihua County Transportation Bureau.
The lack of financial resources seems to be the reason for local governments to deduct farmers’ compensation. Compared with Suihua County and Fengtai Highway in Baoji City, it is even more “ingenious†on the issue of “recruiting without complementationâ€.
The Fengtai Highway, which is currently open to traffic, is an inter-county road linking Fengxian County and Taibai County in Baoji City.
In July 2003, the Fengxian and Taibai County governments issued notices on issues concerning land acquisition and demolition for road construction, which stipulated that land occupied by road construction and barren hills, waste beaches, river courses, etc. shall be exempted from compensation regardless of state or collective ownership.
According to this circular, the two counties used 122.712 mu of peasant land to build roads, and the landless farmers did not receive a one-point compensation for land acquisition.
It is worth noting that in October 2004, the two counties respectively signed the “Land Requisition Demolition Agreement†with the Fengtai Highway Reconstruction Engineering Office, which stipulated that Fengtai Road would require 96.66 acres of arable land for the construction of Fengxian County, and the land acquisition fee would be one acre. 22,000 yuan; 26.05 acres of forest land is required, and the land acquisition fee is 20,000 yuan per mu. With ground attachment removal and compensation for young crops, the total cost was 3.6616 million yuan; the Taibai Section involved 31.21 acres of arable land, 68.7 acres of forest land, and a total of 2.29 million yuan in relocation fees. The agreement clearly stipulates that the cost of various relocations shall be settled by the county government by self-financing, and will be paid after the acceptance of the relocation is completed.
On the surface, Feng County and Taibai County stated in the notice that the road construction land is allocated for free and will not be compensated. In private, the agreement also states that the compensation fee for land acquisition and relocation paid by the two counties is RMB 6,658,300.
What drugs are sold in these two county gourds?
"Say, this is the capital of the central government." On July 6, a researcher at the Macroeconomic Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission told reporters.
The researcher explained that if the central government allocates funds for a project, the local government must also provide some matching funds. In order to get the project funds from the Central Government, local governments often agree to be able to afford matching funds first. "But in fact, most of the current local finances are finances for 'eating' and they simply cannot afford compensation for land acquisition. In the end, they can only harm the interests of farmers." In Feng County and Taibai County, compensation funds for compensation for expropriation to farmers should be accounted for as local matching funds. “With this amount of money in the counties, two things have been resolved: highway construction land and local matching funds. This also reflects the current plight of local finances." The above-mentioned researcher said.
According to the audit, in Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province, the national self-financing plan for inter-county highways and accessibility projects issued by the state in 2003 was 186.51 million yuan, and the financial revenue of Hanzhong City in 2003 was 60.126 million yuan. The local self-financing funds accounted for the fiscal revenue. Up to 31%.
"A lot of counties and cities in Shaanxi Province are underdeveloped, and the state's supporting fund plan cannot be completed. Some of the counties' supporting funds have even reached more than 100% of fiscal revenue," said a person close to the audit department's special audit team.
According to reports, this ratio reached 109% and 334% respectively in Zhenba County and Liuba County in Hanzhong City.
On July 6, the above-mentioned researcher of the Macroeconomic Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission told the reporter that in 1998, the ratio of the central government subsidy and local matching funds was 1:2; after 2001, the ratio was adjusted to 1:1, but in actual operation, Most local matching funds cannot be put in place.
National Development and Reform Commission's Power Boundary
"As a macro-control department, the authority between the National Development and Reform Commission and the local government is unclear, and the management of some local projects is too detailed to die. This is inappropriate," an official of the Chongqing Municipal Government told reporters.
In the highway construction community in Chongqing, a widely publicized statement is: “4000 yuan road construction gold, but also have to run the center.†The reporter learned from the financial department, in Chongqing Wanzhou District, from 2003 to 2004 by the central government subsidized rural construction funds A total of 36.54 million yuan, "because of the small amount of funds, the number of projects, the three departments in the region actually only subsidize the construction of rural roads in accordance with the digital standard ranging from 0.4 to 25,000 yuan per kilometer." "Only 4000 yuan, but also to wait for the country The approval of the National Development and Reform Commission not only weakened the macroeconomic control functions of the National Development and Reform Commission, but also affected the quality of these roads, said a person from Chongqing's transportation department.
According to this person, the lack of subsidies directly led to the construction of these rural roads with very low standards. After many of the roads were built, the weather was blocked by rain and the roads were not open to traffic.
The results of the special audit showed that out of the 22 roads built by workers and workers in Chongqing, 15 of them cannot be opened to traffic, and 39 of the 49 roads for the construction of poverty alleviation funds cannot be opened to traffic.
“The environmental protection and water pollution problems mentioned in this audit report amount to more than 1,000 billion, and no one is in charge. Less than half of the 100 million large-scale projects are under construction and no one is in charge. Water conservancy projects are idle for tens of billions, and nobody asks. However, a large number of small projects have been approved, "said the National People's Congress representative in Beijing.
The Guangdong Provincial Development and Reform Commission has also made in-depth comments through internal channels. “The National Development and Reform Commission should not overcommit the specific work to death. There are several thousand projects in a province. The provincial Development and Reform Commission cannot manage it. How can the National Development and Reform Commission manage it?â€
A multi-ministry subsidy for a village road?
“Our review of the inter-county rural road reconstruction project in Chongqing found that rural road construction funds, especially the central funding channels, are scattered and useless, and it is difficult to form a concerted effort to affect the investment effect of rural highway construction.†.
Chongqing's "Eighth-hour Chongqing" project is a typical example of the local "running" department's progress.
The audit showed that in 2002 the Ministry of Communications issued a grant of 60 million yuan to Chongqing Municipality for the construction of five Tongxiang projects. However, at the beginning of this project application, only a central government subsidy of RMB 2 million was proposed. Afterwards, the Chongqing Municipal Communications Commission has incorporated this multiple of the central grant into the “eight-hour Chongqing†project.
In 2003, when the Chongqing Communications Committee applied for a subsidy, it also listed the provincial highways and national highways 319 line projects that belong to the “eight-hour Chongqing†project as the Tongda project’s application to the Ministry of Communications for a central vehicle purchase tax grant. The subsidies far exceeded its declared amount of 4 million yuan.
Similar applications for repeated application for approval, long-ranged funding, repeated release of plans, and unauthorized adjustment of scale have existed in 90% of the cities in Anhui Province.
The reporter’s investigation found that Yuexi County in Anhui Province used all or part of the six roads from Yanhe to Miaodao Mountain, 209 Provincial Road to Meiliu Village, including the National Debt, the Ministry of Tongda, the provincial Tongda, and the Workers’ Substitutes. The name of the project was repeatedly reported to the higher level Development and Reform Commission and the Communications Department and other departments, and applied for grants in multiple cases. Eventually it received subsidies of 61.95 million yuan, of which the central government subsidized 54.75 million yuan.
It is understood that in the national highway construction investment in counties and townships, the sources of central government funds mainly include central vehicle purchase tax funds, work-for-purpose funds, and poverty alleviation funds. These funds are managed by the Ministry of Communications, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Poverty Alleviation Office in the name of accessibility projects, public transportation, and county-township road reconstruction. The audit shows that a country road may even receive successive subsidy from multiple central ministries and commissions.
According to an audit report disclosed on June 28, during the renovation of the county and rural roads issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments from 2003 to 2004, 124 projects in 9 provinces, including Anhui, Shaanxi, and Guizhou, were discovered. The amount of central subsidy funds of 1.32 billion yuan was obtained through various methods such as the reconstruction of rural highways, poverty-relief highways, and tourism highways, etc.
A researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council stated that when the standards, procedures, and directions of distribution of funds by ministries and commissions all have chapters to follow, the discretionary power of the ministries and commissions for examining and approving projects will be very small; if they are not openly opaque, they will inevitably give discretion to ministries and commissions. right.
“At present, there is no unified coordination between the use of special funds by various departments. There is also a lack of procedures, standards, and explicit investment in funds within the departments. This is worrying.†The representative of the National People’s Congress of Beijing proposed that the country straighten out investment management. Institutional problems, the implementation of a department to lead several departments to participate in the mechanism. Instead of falling into the situation of decentralization and governance with various ministries, as it is now.
Government investment system difficult to be solved
"In addition to continuing to focus on specific cases, this year's audit report talked more about macro issues and paid more attention to issues concerning system construction. This is a new feature of the audit report," said Cui Zhenlong, deputy director of Audit Research Institute of the Audit Commission.
On July 2, the National Development and Reform Commission responded to some of the cases involved in the audit report on its official website, but did not mention its own institutional problems.
Wei Ganing, vice minister of the Macroeconomic Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, believes that there are problems in the work of the National Development and Reform Commission. However, these problems must be found in the system and cannot be blamed on people. Since the NDRC is a member of several positions and there are conflicts of interest and conflicts between these functions, it will inevitably lead to job misconduct.
In the past, in the era of investment approval, the project investment procedure was extremely complicated. It was necessary to go through many links such as project approval, feasibility study, preliminary design, and expansion design. Every link must involve many departments. For a project to cover hundreds of official seals, and spend several years or even more than a dozen years, many companies almost "talk about the approval change."
In July 2004, the State Council announced the "Decision on Further Reforming the Investment System," announcing that the project investment will be changed from government approval to approval. This is seen as a major breakthrough in the reform of the investment system in recent years.
However, after a period of time, the country’s investment system reform has still been accused of “replacement with drugsâ€.
According to a survey data related to this, after the project investment has changed from the approval system to the approval system, the efficiency of the project has been worse than before.
The reason is that after the investment approval was changed to the approval system, the supporting measures did not keep up. Trade, customs, planning, land, environmental protection, taxation, industry and commerce departments must be approved by the Development and Reform Commission. Secondly, the approval system must first be approved for planning, construction, and environmental protection, and then approved by the National Development and Reform Commission. After approval, the approval of various departments will take longer, and more departments will run, making it more difficult.
Some experts suggest that similar to the transformation of the inter-county roads, the National Development and Reform Commission should first make plans, and then transfer them to the local government for implementation. At the same time, as far as possible to save the approval process.
“The National Development and Reform Commission itself has much greater power than other departments and has nuanced project approval rights. Therefore, it is easy to objectively seek the quest for maximizing the interests of the department through the name of reform,†said Wei Ganing.
Wei advocates setting up a neutral institution that is similar to the past system for structural reform as a special responsibility for structural reforms. "Otherwise, great reform initiatives can eventually go astray."
A new round of audit storms pushed the reform of the government investment system to the center of public opinion.
On June 28th, Auditor General Li Jinhua of the National Audit Office mentioned in his report “The Audit of the Implementation of Central Budget and Other Financial Revenues and Expenditure in 2004â€, “Because the management rights of the capital construction projects between the central and local and central departments are not clear enough. The National Development and Reform Commission, as a department of macroeconomic management and control of the national economy, arranges a large number of subsidized investments in special forms for localities. The categories are complex and the projects are small and scattered. They directly involve counties, townships, and villages, and are not conducive to the macroeconomic regulation and control of the national economy by the central government investment. In this audit report, the National Development and Reform Commission was named five times for investment management issues, and became the central ministry with the most identified problems.
“How does the NDRC coordinate the relationship with local governments and ministries and commissions, and it involves the issue of the 'downsizing' of its own functional power. This also reflects some of the deep-seated problems in China’s investment management system.†July 4th, Beijing The NPC representative said.
County and township road construction "only account for no sign"
A new road is passing through Xu Village, and the family’s livelihood has broken the access road.
Zhang Xifeng is a villager in Xucun, Fangli Town, Suihua County, Shaanxi Province. He lives in a family of 6 fruit trees. In April 2005, the reconstruction project for the total budget of 17.5 million yuan and a total length of 35 kilometers of Yaoyao Road (Yunhua County-Yao County) was officially started. The planned road will occupy part of the orchard of Zhang Xifeng, but Zhang was not too worried.
According to Article 47 of the “Law of the State Landâ€, the land cultivated by peasants is occupied not only for the compensation of the land but also for the agricultural products on the land due to road construction and other reasons.
With the progress of the project, Zhang Xifeng’s family of 80 fruit trees was shaved off. The disappointing news that caused Zhang Xifeng to follow is that the county’s compensation standard for the occupied cultivated land is set to be 30 yuan for each fruit tree, 5 yuan for each tree without fruit, and there is no compensation for the cultivated land itself.
“A tree costs three or four hundred pounds of apples a year. Even a dime sold for two cents can earn more than 60 yuan, and the compensation fee is only 30 yuan. It is not possible to plan a visit! Let’s say 80 trees. It took so many years to cut down. What do we eat later?†said Zhang Xifeng.
The case of Zhang Xifeng is not a case in Shaanxi. In March this year, the Audit Commission organized 18 special administrative offices and more than 200 auditing staff. It took one and a half months to carry out special audit investigations on the reconstruction of the county and rural highways in 16 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country. Among the 16 inter-county highways in Shaanxi Xianyang, Baoji, Shangluo, and Ankang, there are 14 projects that do not have compensation for land acquisition and occupy a total area of ​​1,808 mu.
In addition, the problem of illegal land requisition, arrears of construction funds and peasants' land requisition compensation funds is serious. A total of 186 projects were audited, of which 25 projects had illegal land acquisition of 287,000 mu. Nine projects were owed compensation for land acquisition and migrant workers’ wages were 371 million yuan.
The audit report stated that the land compensation, resettlement subsidies, ground attachments and young crop compensation fees paid by some projects to the farmers were significantly lower than the prescribed standards. In some areas, construction projects also violated the rules and allowed farmers to pay labor to compensate local governments for supporting funds. For example, the estimated total investment for the treatment of the major harbor areas in the Huaihe River's Chenzu Bay is 213 million yuan. All the central and provincial funds are in place, and the supporting 10.7 million yuan in cities and counties all allow the farmers to reach the top without compensation.
So take the central funding
"It is not that we have deliberately deducted farmers' compensation for arable land. It is really no money for the government," said an official at the Shaanxi Suihua County Transportation Bureau.
The lack of financial resources seems to be the reason for local governments to deduct farmers’ compensation. Compared with Suihua County and Fengtai Highway in Baoji City, it is even more “ingenious†on the issue of “recruiting without complementationâ€.
The Fengtai Highway, which is currently open to traffic, is an inter-county road linking Fengxian County and Taibai County in Baoji City.
In July 2003, the Fengxian and Taibai County governments issued notices on issues concerning land acquisition and demolition for road construction, which stipulated that land occupied by road construction and barren hills, waste beaches, river courses, etc. shall be exempted from compensation regardless of state or collective ownership.
According to this circular, the two counties used 122.712 mu of peasant land to build roads, and the landless farmers did not receive a one-point compensation for land acquisition.
It is worth noting that in October 2004, the two counties respectively signed the “Land Requisition Demolition Agreement†with the Fengtai Highway Reconstruction Engineering Office, which stipulated that Fengtai Road would require 96.66 acres of arable land for the construction of Fengxian County, and the land acquisition fee would be one acre. 22,000 yuan; 26.05 acres of forest land is required, and the land acquisition fee is 20,000 yuan per mu. With ground attachment removal and compensation for young crops, the total cost was 3.6616 million yuan; the Taibai Section involved 31.21 acres of arable land, 68.7 acres of forest land, and a total of 2.29 million yuan in relocation fees. The agreement clearly stipulates that the cost of various relocations shall be settled by the county government by self-financing, and will be paid after the acceptance of the relocation is completed.
On the surface, Feng County and Taibai County stated in the notice that the road construction land is allocated for free and will not be compensated. In private, the agreement also states that the compensation fee for land acquisition and relocation paid by the two counties is RMB 6,658,300.
What drugs are sold in these two county gourds?
"Say, this is the capital of the central government." On July 6, a researcher at the Macroeconomic Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission told reporters.
The researcher explained that if the central government allocates funds for a project, the local government must also provide some matching funds. In order to get the project funds from the Central Government, local governments often agree to be able to afford matching funds first. "But in fact, most of the current local finances are finances for 'eating' and they simply cannot afford compensation for land acquisition. In the end, they can only harm the interests of farmers." In Feng County and Taibai County, compensation funds for compensation for expropriation to farmers should be accounted for as local matching funds. “With this amount of money in the counties, two things have been resolved: highway construction land and local matching funds. This also reflects the current plight of local finances." The above-mentioned researcher said.
According to the audit, in Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province, the national self-financing plan for inter-county highways and accessibility projects issued by the state in 2003 was 186.51 million yuan, and the financial revenue of Hanzhong City in 2003 was 60.126 million yuan. The local self-financing funds accounted for the fiscal revenue. Up to 31%.
"A lot of counties and cities in Shaanxi Province are underdeveloped, and the state's supporting fund plan cannot be completed. Some of the counties' supporting funds have even reached more than 100% of fiscal revenue," said a person close to the audit department's special audit team.
According to reports, this ratio reached 109% and 334% respectively in Zhenba County and Liuba County in Hanzhong City.
On July 6, the above-mentioned researcher of the Macroeconomic Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission told the reporter that in 1998, the ratio of the central government subsidy and local matching funds was 1:2; after 2001, the ratio was adjusted to 1:1, but in actual operation, Most local matching funds cannot be put in place.
National Development and Reform Commission's Power Boundary
"As a macro-control department, the authority between the National Development and Reform Commission and the local government is unclear, and the management of some local projects is too detailed to die. This is inappropriate," an official of the Chongqing Municipal Government told reporters.
In the highway construction community in Chongqing, a widely publicized statement is: “4000 yuan road construction gold, but also have to run the center.†The reporter learned from the financial department, in Chongqing Wanzhou District, from 2003 to 2004 by the central government subsidized rural construction funds A total of 36.54 million yuan, "because of the small amount of funds, the number of projects, the three departments in the region actually only subsidize the construction of rural roads in accordance with the digital standard ranging from 0.4 to 25,000 yuan per kilometer." "Only 4000 yuan, but also to wait for the country The approval of the National Development and Reform Commission not only weakened the macroeconomic control functions of the National Development and Reform Commission, but also affected the quality of these roads, said a person from Chongqing's transportation department.
According to this person, the lack of subsidies directly led to the construction of these rural roads with very low standards. After many of the roads were built, the weather was blocked by rain and the roads were not open to traffic.
The results of the special audit showed that out of the 22 roads built by workers and workers in Chongqing, 15 of them cannot be opened to traffic, and 39 of the 49 roads for the construction of poverty alleviation funds cannot be opened to traffic.
“The environmental protection and water pollution problems mentioned in this audit report amount to more than 1,000 billion, and no one is in charge. Less than half of the 100 million large-scale projects are under construction and no one is in charge. Water conservancy projects are idle for tens of billions, and nobody asks. However, a large number of small projects have been approved, "said the National People's Congress representative in Beijing.
The Guangdong Provincial Development and Reform Commission has also made in-depth comments through internal channels. “The National Development and Reform Commission should not overcommit the specific work to death. There are several thousand projects in a province. The provincial Development and Reform Commission cannot manage it. How can the National Development and Reform Commission manage it?â€
A multi-ministry subsidy for a village road?
“Our review of the inter-county rural road reconstruction project in Chongqing found that rural road construction funds, especially the central funding channels, are scattered and useless, and it is difficult to form a concerted effort to affect the investment effect of rural highway construction.†.
Chongqing's "Eighth-hour Chongqing" project is a typical example of the local "running" department's progress.
The audit showed that in 2002 the Ministry of Communications issued a grant of 60 million yuan to Chongqing Municipality for the construction of five Tongxiang projects. However, at the beginning of this project application, only a central government subsidy of RMB 2 million was proposed. Afterwards, the Chongqing Municipal Communications Commission has incorporated this multiple of the central grant into the “eight-hour Chongqing†project.
In 2003, when the Chongqing Communications Committee applied for a subsidy, it also listed the provincial highways and national highways 319 line projects that belong to the “eight-hour Chongqing†project as the Tongda project’s application to the Ministry of Communications for a central vehicle purchase tax grant. The subsidies far exceeded its declared amount of 4 million yuan.
Similar applications for repeated application for approval, long-ranged funding, repeated release of plans, and unauthorized adjustment of scale have existed in 90% of the cities in Anhui Province.
The reporter’s investigation found that Yuexi County in Anhui Province used all or part of the six roads from Yanhe to Miaodao Mountain, 209 Provincial Road to Meiliu Village, including the National Debt, the Ministry of Tongda, the provincial Tongda, and the Workers’ Substitutes. The name of the project was repeatedly reported to the higher level Development and Reform Commission and the Communications Department and other departments, and applied for grants in multiple cases. Eventually it received subsidies of 61.95 million yuan, of which the central government subsidized 54.75 million yuan.
It is understood that in the national highway construction investment in counties and townships, the sources of central government funds mainly include central vehicle purchase tax funds, work-for-purpose funds, and poverty alleviation funds. These funds are managed by the Ministry of Communications, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Poverty Alleviation Office in the name of accessibility projects, public transportation, and county-township road reconstruction. The audit shows that a country road may even receive successive subsidy from multiple central ministries and commissions.
According to an audit report disclosed on June 28, during the renovation of the county and rural roads issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments from 2003 to 2004, 124 projects in 9 provinces, including Anhui, Shaanxi, and Guizhou, were discovered. The amount of central subsidy funds of 1.32 billion yuan was obtained through various methods such as the reconstruction of rural highways, poverty-relief highways, and tourism highways, etc.
A researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council stated that when the standards, procedures, and directions of distribution of funds by ministries and commissions all have chapters to follow, the discretionary power of the ministries and commissions for examining and approving projects will be very small; if they are not openly opaque, they will inevitably give discretion to ministries and commissions. right.
“At present, there is no unified coordination between the use of special funds by various departments. There is also a lack of procedures, standards, and explicit investment in funds within the departments. This is worrying.†The representative of the National People’s Congress of Beijing proposed that the country straighten out investment management. Institutional problems, the implementation of a department to lead several departments to participate in the mechanism. Instead of falling into the situation of decentralization and governance with various ministries, as it is now.
Government investment system difficult to be solved
"In addition to continuing to focus on specific cases, this year's audit report talked more about macro issues and paid more attention to issues concerning system construction. This is a new feature of the audit report," said Cui Zhenlong, deputy director of Audit Research Institute of the Audit Commission.
On July 2, the National Development and Reform Commission responded to some of the cases involved in the audit report on its official website, but did not mention its own institutional problems.
Wei Ganing, vice minister of the Macroeconomic Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, believes that there are problems in the work of the National Development and Reform Commission. However, these problems must be found in the system and cannot be blamed on people. Since the NDRC is a member of several positions and there are conflicts of interest and conflicts between these functions, it will inevitably lead to job misconduct.
In the past, in the era of investment approval, the project investment procedure was extremely complicated. It was necessary to go through many links such as project approval, feasibility study, preliminary design, and expansion design. Every link must involve many departments. For a project to cover hundreds of official seals, and spend several years or even more than a dozen years, many companies almost "talk about the approval change."
In July 2004, the State Council announced the "Decision on Further Reforming the Investment System," announcing that the project investment will be changed from government approval to approval. This is seen as a major breakthrough in the reform of the investment system in recent years.
However, after a period of time, the country’s investment system reform has still been accused of “replacement with drugsâ€.
According to a survey data related to this, after the project investment has changed from the approval system to the approval system, the efficiency of the project has been worse than before.
The reason is that after the investment approval was changed to the approval system, the supporting measures did not keep up. Trade, customs, planning, land, environmental protection, taxation, industry and commerce departments must be approved by the Development and Reform Commission. Secondly, the approval system must first be approved for planning, construction, and environmental protection, and then approved by the National Development and Reform Commission. After approval, the approval of various departments will take longer, and more departments will run, making it more difficult.
Some experts suggest that similar to the transformation of the inter-county roads, the National Development and Reform Commission should first make plans, and then transfer them to the local government for implementation. At the same time, as far as possible to save the approval process.
“The National Development and Reform Commission itself has much greater power than other departments and has nuanced project approval rights. Therefore, it is easy to objectively seek the quest for maximizing the interests of the department through the name of reform,†said Wei Ganing.
Wei advocates setting up a neutral institution that is similar to the past system for structural reform as a special responsibility for structural reforms. "Otherwise, great reform initiatives can eventually go astray."
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