Home » Opinion » Opinion Columns
Too many 'servants' idle at public trough
By Wang Yong |
October 11, 2011, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A TOWNSHIP Party secretary in Chongqing was reported in June to have organized gambling at mahjong in a resort villa while attending a training program on the family planning law.
Four months have passed, and the local Party discipline department has failed to make any progress in its investigation. A spokesman for the department said on Sunday: "We're still investigating it."
This hardly qualifies as "news" in China today, where too many officials prefer to serve renminbi (Chinese currency, literally "people's money"), not renmin (the people).
Playing cards or mahjong at work has come to typify the bureaucratic life in many parts of China, from Chongqing in the west to Nanjing in the east.
Corruption? Of course. But there's another problem: China simply has too many officials.
A 2005 news report by People's Daily said there was one official for every 26 ordinary taxpayers, 306 times that of the level in Western Han Dyansty (202 BC - 9 AD), one of China's strongest empires.
While the 2005 figure might have been a bit of exaggeration, one is still aghast at the official figure of official numbers - announced this March - of about 10 million officials across China. That's one official for about every 120 ordinary taxpayers.
The number of those feeding at the public trough has skyrocketed lately as the government tries to create jobs for the myriad laid-off workers. In 2003, 87,000 people sat in national public servant admission tests. The figure peaked at 1.46 million last year. This year, slightly fewer people attended the tests: 1.42 million.
When a nation is willing to feed so many official mouths, you bet many of them will bet their time away an mahjong tables, whether they are corrupt or not. They simply have nothing to do at work.
Four months have passed, and the local Party discipline department has failed to make any progress in its investigation. A spokesman for the department said on Sunday: "We're still investigating it."
This hardly qualifies as "news" in China today, where too many officials prefer to serve renminbi (Chinese currency, literally "people's money"), not renmin (the people).
Playing cards or mahjong at work has come to typify the bureaucratic life in many parts of China, from Chongqing in the west to Nanjing in the east.
Corruption? Of course. But there's another problem: China simply has too many officials.
A 2005 news report by People's Daily said there was one official for every 26 ordinary taxpayers, 306 times that of the level in Western Han Dyansty (202 BC - 9 AD), one of China's strongest empires.
While the 2005 figure might have been a bit of exaggeration, one is still aghast at the official figure of official numbers - announced this March - of about 10 million officials across China. That's one official for about every 120 ordinary taxpayers.
The number of those feeding at the public trough has skyrocketed lately as the government tries to create jobs for the myriad laid-off workers. In 2003, 87,000 people sat in national public servant admission tests. The figure peaked at 1.46 million last year. This year, slightly fewer people attended the tests: 1.42 million.
When a nation is willing to feed so many official mouths, you bet many of them will bet their time away an mahjong tables, whether they are corrupt or not. They simply have nothing to do at work.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
