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Li Yan, a graduate student at the Tsinghua University Law School, may not be a household name. However, she won a battle for information that will strengthen the right of ordinary Chinese citizens to obtain information from government departments.
The 24-year-old student had requested information about the responsibilities of the vice ministers at the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Land and Resources and the Ministry of Education, for an academic paper she was preparing.
When this request was turned down, she filed a case at the Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court in early September against the three departments.
Ying Songnian, an administrative law professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, said Li’s request, which was in line with the country’s Regulations on the Disclosure of Government Information, should have been met.
“It’s good to see a young student fighting for her rights, since establishing a transparent government requires effort by both the authorities and the public,” Ying said.
In October, Li finally reached an agreement with the three ministries after receiving information on the functions of the relevant ministers.
In spite of the progress made since the Regulations on the Disclosure of Government Information came into effect on May 1, 2008, the fact is that obtaining information from government agencies remains a major challenge for individual citizens in China.
The regulations stipulate that government departments have an obligation to publish all the information related to the department’s operation, with the exception of properly defined “secrets.” However, few of them have honored that obligation in the past three years.
A report on the transparency of government agencies, published by Peking University’s Center for Public Participation Studies and Support in late September, said only eight out of the 43 evaluated central government departments scored more than 60 points out of a possible 100 in a test to gauge their level of transparency and the other 35 departments received failing grades. The average score of the 43 departments was 51.
“Government departments still don’t think that information disclosure is their responsibility,” said Wang Jingbo, co-author of the report from China University of Political Science and Law.
“When we called officials with the State Council’s Legislative Affairs Office and asked them to release an opinion solicited on a draft law, they simply said that they didn’t have to disclose that,” Wang said. “As for those who responded to our application, the information they offered usually lacked substance.”
“Access to government information is the cornerstone of government supervision,”Ying said. “How can we know how they spend tax payer’s money if we can’t even see annual budgets?”
Three public consumptions
In June, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, approved the final accounts of the 2010 central government spending. For the first time the accounts included a special section on the Central Government’s expenditure on vehicles, overseas trips and receptions, which is referred to by some observers as the “three public consumptions.”
According to statistics from the Ministry of Finance, about 9.47 billion yuan ($1.39 billion) was spent on the three public consumptions by the nation’s central government departments and institutions affliated to them in 2010.
The bulk of the spending, 6.17 billion yuan ($903.37 million), went toward purchasing vehicles and transportation expenses, 1.77 billion yuan ($259.15 million) was spent on overseas trips and 1.53 billion yuan($224.01 million) on receptions.
In addition, the Central Government’s administrative overhead stood at 88.71 billion yuan ($12.99 billion) in 2010.
Government expenditure on the three public consumptions has long been viewed as a major source of government corruption and waste. Many people have accused government departments of deliberately omitting information regarding their extravagant spending on perks for officials in fiscal statements.
For years, people have been guessing and making estimates of how much money the government departments, at every level from county to national, spend on the three public consumptions.
Some estimates put government spending on the three consumptions at 900 billion yuan($131.77 billion) a year, which represents about 30 percent of total government expenditure.
In mid-April, an online posting revealed that the Guangdong branch of Sinopec, a high-profile state-owned petroleum company, spent more than 1 million yuan($146,413) on expensive liquor.
After the scandal broke out, the branch’s general manager, Lu Guangyu, was removed from office. An investigation showed that he had purchased dozens of bottles of liquor, each costing more than 10,000 yuan ($1,464).
In order to curb extravagant public spending and increase transparency the Central Government began to publicize its expenditure related to the three public consumptions this year.
At a meeting on March 23, the State Council, China’s cabinet, decided that the budget of the Central Government for the three public consumptions would be disclosed in June and reaffirmed the government’s commitment to cutting the spending in these three areas.
In April, the Ministry of Science and Technology released the 2011 figures for its expenditure on these three items, which amounted to 40.18 million yuan ($5.88 million), the first to make public its spending on the three items.
Many other ministries and ministry-level government agencies have also released their spending on the three public consumptions.
Wang Xixin, a professor at the Law School of Peking University, told Xinhua News Agency that the move will make government spending more transparent, adding that making government budgets and financial accounts public had been the objective of China’s public fiscal reform.
“If the three public consumptions were left unrestrained the government’s credibility would have been undermined,” said Wu Zhongmin, a professor at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
A long way to go
Although the publication of the central government departments’ budgets was seen as a step toward greater transparency, the expenditure shown in their reports was much less than the public had anticipated.
Zhu Lijia, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said the government should be given credit for its efforts to make its financial accounts and budget implementation more accessible to the public.
However, what mattered most was not merely a sum of the total expenses, but detailed accounts, down to each specific purchase or trip paid with taxpayers’ money, Zhu said.
He also recommended that prior audits should be conducted by an independent party to give more credibility to the official data released in government agencies’ financial accounts.
Ye Qing, Deputy Director of the Hubei Provincial Bureau of Statistics, said the official figures sounded less credible as the three items were not listed under separate headings in the annual budget.
“Most of the figures are tucked away among other budgetary items,” Ye said. “It is common for local governments to divert money from other projects to fund the three consumptions.”
Government departments began disclosing information on the three public consumptions as early as 2007. On January 1 of that year, the reform of government revenue and expenditure proposed by the Ministry of Finance was put into action in order to set up a modern budget administration.
Since then the amount of money spent on these three items has been recorded in the accounts of government revenue and expenditure.
In 2008, the State Council issued the Regulations on the Disclosure of Government Information, which requires administrative agencies to disclose information that involves citizens’ interests to ordinary citizens.
Following the introduction of Regulations on the Disclosure of Government Information, more than 70 central government departments made public their budgets, but the information about the expenditure on the three public consumptions was excluded.
This year, the information was included in the reports of the 98 government departments under the State Council, but the figures were criticized for being vague and devoid of substance.
“China does not have budget categories which take into account expenditure on those three items. As a result, many ministries just ignore them in their official releases,”said Ren Jianming, Director of the AntiCorruption and Governance Research Center of Tsinghua University.
In response to the problem, the State Council’s Legislative Affairs Office and Government Offices Administration released on November 21 a draft proposal on regulating the three public consumptions by publishing expenditure figures and inviting public responses.
The draft requested that all authorities above the county level include the expenditure on the three items in their annual budget and regularly make these expenditures public. According to the draft regulation, governments should abide by the principle of austerity when laying down their annual budgets and strictly control their expenditure on the three items.
The draft also stipulates that relevant government agencies should neither misappropriate other budgetary funds nor receive donations from enterprises and affiliated organizations for these expenditures, both of which have led to malpractices in the past. Punishments will be meted out to those involved in excessive spending.
Despite some tangible progress, experts claim that the disclosure of spending on the three public consumptions is just the first step toward cutting the unnecessary waste of taxpayers’ money and realizing clean and honest governance.
An Tifu, a professor of fiscal finance at Renmin University of China, suggested that government departments should disclose details on all their other expenditure, not only spending on the three consumptions, in a manner that conforms to international standards.
“Only a detailed list of all expenditures will actually enable our people to participate in effective supervision,” An said.
“China has been striving to build a service-oriented government which needs public supervision,” said Wang with the Law School of Peking University.
The 24-year-old student had requested information about the responsibilities of the vice ministers at the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Land and Resources and the Ministry of Education, for an academic paper she was preparing.
When this request was turned down, she filed a case at the Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court in early September against the three departments.
Ying Songnian, an administrative law professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, said Li’s request, which was in line with the country’s Regulations on the Disclosure of Government Information, should have been met.
“It’s good to see a young student fighting for her rights, since establishing a transparent government requires effort by both the authorities and the public,” Ying said.
In October, Li finally reached an agreement with the three ministries after receiving information on the functions of the relevant ministers.
In spite of the progress made since the Regulations on the Disclosure of Government Information came into effect on May 1, 2008, the fact is that obtaining information from government agencies remains a major challenge for individual citizens in China.
The regulations stipulate that government departments have an obligation to publish all the information related to the department’s operation, with the exception of properly defined “secrets.” However, few of them have honored that obligation in the past three years.
A report on the transparency of government agencies, published by Peking University’s Center for Public Participation Studies and Support in late September, said only eight out of the 43 evaluated central government departments scored more than 60 points out of a possible 100 in a test to gauge their level of transparency and the other 35 departments received failing grades. The average score of the 43 departments was 51.
“Government departments still don’t think that information disclosure is their responsibility,” said Wang Jingbo, co-author of the report from China University of Political Science and Law.
“When we called officials with the State Council’s Legislative Affairs Office and asked them to release an opinion solicited on a draft law, they simply said that they didn’t have to disclose that,” Wang said. “As for those who responded to our application, the information they offered usually lacked substance.”
“Access to government information is the cornerstone of government supervision,”Ying said. “How can we know how they spend tax payer’s money if we can’t even see annual budgets?”
Three public consumptions
In June, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, approved the final accounts of the 2010 central government spending. For the first time the accounts included a special section on the Central Government’s expenditure on vehicles, overseas trips and receptions, which is referred to by some observers as the “three public consumptions.”
According to statistics from the Ministry of Finance, about 9.47 billion yuan ($1.39 billion) was spent on the three public consumptions by the nation’s central government departments and institutions affliated to them in 2010.
The bulk of the spending, 6.17 billion yuan ($903.37 million), went toward purchasing vehicles and transportation expenses, 1.77 billion yuan ($259.15 million) was spent on overseas trips and 1.53 billion yuan($224.01 million) on receptions.
In addition, the Central Government’s administrative overhead stood at 88.71 billion yuan ($12.99 billion) in 2010.
Government expenditure on the three public consumptions has long been viewed as a major source of government corruption and waste. Many people have accused government departments of deliberately omitting information regarding their extravagant spending on perks for officials in fiscal statements.
For years, people have been guessing and making estimates of how much money the government departments, at every level from county to national, spend on the three public consumptions.
Some estimates put government spending on the three consumptions at 900 billion yuan($131.77 billion) a year, which represents about 30 percent of total government expenditure.
In mid-April, an online posting revealed that the Guangdong branch of Sinopec, a high-profile state-owned petroleum company, spent more than 1 million yuan($146,413) on expensive liquor.
After the scandal broke out, the branch’s general manager, Lu Guangyu, was removed from office. An investigation showed that he had purchased dozens of bottles of liquor, each costing more than 10,000 yuan ($1,464).
In order to curb extravagant public spending and increase transparency the Central Government began to publicize its expenditure related to the three public consumptions this year.
At a meeting on March 23, the State Council, China’s cabinet, decided that the budget of the Central Government for the three public consumptions would be disclosed in June and reaffirmed the government’s commitment to cutting the spending in these three areas.
In April, the Ministry of Science and Technology released the 2011 figures for its expenditure on these three items, which amounted to 40.18 million yuan ($5.88 million), the first to make public its spending on the three items.
Many other ministries and ministry-level government agencies have also released their spending on the three public consumptions.
Wang Xixin, a professor at the Law School of Peking University, told Xinhua News Agency that the move will make government spending more transparent, adding that making government budgets and financial accounts public had been the objective of China’s public fiscal reform.
“If the three public consumptions were left unrestrained the government’s credibility would have been undermined,” said Wu Zhongmin, a professor at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
A long way to go
Although the publication of the central government departments’ budgets was seen as a step toward greater transparency, the expenditure shown in their reports was much less than the public had anticipated.
Zhu Lijia, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said the government should be given credit for its efforts to make its financial accounts and budget implementation more accessible to the public.
However, what mattered most was not merely a sum of the total expenses, but detailed accounts, down to each specific purchase or trip paid with taxpayers’ money, Zhu said.
He also recommended that prior audits should be conducted by an independent party to give more credibility to the official data released in government agencies’ financial accounts.
Ye Qing, Deputy Director of the Hubei Provincial Bureau of Statistics, said the official figures sounded less credible as the three items were not listed under separate headings in the annual budget.
“Most of the figures are tucked away among other budgetary items,” Ye said. “It is common for local governments to divert money from other projects to fund the three consumptions.”
Government departments began disclosing information on the three public consumptions as early as 2007. On January 1 of that year, the reform of government revenue and expenditure proposed by the Ministry of Finance was put into action in order to set up a modern budget administration.
Since then the amount of money spent on these three items has been recorded in the accounts of government revenue and expenditure.
In 2008, the State Council issued the Regulations on the Disclosure of Government Information, which requires administrative agencies to disclose information that involves citizens’ interests to ordinary citizens.
Following the introduction of Regulations on the Disclosure of Government Information, more than 70 central government departments made public their budgets, but the information about the expenditure on the three public consumptions was excluded.
This year, the information was included in the reports of the 98 government departments under the State Council, but the figures were criticized for being vague and devoid of substance.
“China does not have budget categories which take into account expenditure on those three items. As a result, many ministries just ignore them in their official releases,”said Ren Jianming, Director of the AntiCorruption and Governance Research Center of Tsinghua University.
In response to the problem, the State Council’s Legislative Affairs Office and Government Offices Administration released on November 21 a draft proposal on regulating the three public consumptions by publishing expenditure figures and inviting public responses.
The draft requested that all authorities above the county level include the expenditure on the three items in their annual budget and regularly make these expenditures public. According to the draft regulation, governments should abide by the principle of austerity when laying down their annual budgets and strictly control their expenditure on the three items.
The draft also stipulates that relevant government agencies should neither misappropriate other budgetary funds nor receive donations from enterprises and affiliated organizations for these expenditures, both of which have led to malpractices in the past. Punishments will be meted out to those involved in excessive spending.
Despite some tangible progress, experts claim that the disclosure of spending on the three public consumptions is just the first step toward cutting the unnecessary waste of taxpayers’ money and realizing clean and honest governance.
An Tifu, a professor of fiscal finance at Renmin University of China, suggested that government departments should disclose details on all their other expenditure, not only spending on the three consumptions, in a manner that conforms to international standards.
“Only a detailed list of all expenditures will actually enable our people to participate in effective supervision,” An said.
“China has been striving to build a service-oriented government which needs public supervision,” said Wang with the Law School of Peking University.