BEIJING: The central government has called for the crackdown on formalism to be stepped up so that the burdens on grassroots-level departments can be reduced.
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China and the National Commission of Supervision, China’s top anti-graft bodies, said that in the first two months of this year, the authorities investigated and dealt with 17,643 cases of formalism and bureaucracy, with 15,940 cases originating from the township level and below.
In an article published on their website on Friday, they said that some stubborn problems of formalism and bureaucracy persist, including recurring issues and new forms of disguised problems.
The root cause of the formalism problem often lies in higher-level authorities and departments. Some senior leaders have poor work styles and are disconnected from grassroots realities when making decisions. Another reason is that some grassroots cadres have misplaced views about performance and lack a sense of responsibility, focusing on pleasing superiors rather than serving the people.
The article emphasized the need to establish a sound mechanism for reducing burdens at the grassroots level. It urged the maintenance of a strict stance toward both longstanding problems and new situations, taking targeted measures to rectify common problems, plugging institutional loopholes and refining the responsibilities of officials.
Details of three typical cases of rectifying formalism to alleviate burdens at the grassroots level were released last month by the Central-Level Office for Reducing the Burden on the Grassroots by Combating Formalism.
In one case in the town of Weishui, in Songzi, Hubei province, some village cadres had five government apps and 26 work-related chat groups on their mobile phones. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
