Minefield in Linfen

By Jianggan Li | 28 April 2009 | Permanent link | 0 comments

After the election in 2007, political fractions caused Belgium to be run without a cabinet for more than half a year. The political crisis has been ongoing until recently.

But the system is healthy, everyone was vying for the job of Prime Minister and the country has functioned normally during the crisis.

The Chinese city of Linfen, however, is not that fortunate.

The city, located in the northern province of Shanxi has not had a mayor for more than half a year.

The last mayoral incumbent, the fourth over the last three years, was forced to leave following a landslide of iron ore that killed more than 300 people.

Unlike in Belgium, where politicians compete for the top job, here suitable candidates shy away, considering the post too perilous to their career prospects.

The party secretary of the city, who was the de facto leader of the jurisdiction, was sacked as well. The vacancies of the two most important posts in the government forced the annual plenary session of the city council to be canceled, because nobody could take responsibility for reporting the city government’s work to the councillors.

The same accident also led to the resignation of Meng Xuenong, then Governor of the province, also the fourth in three years’ time. People might remember Meng as the political casualty of Sars, who was sacked from his post as Beijing’s Mayor in 2003. He was believed to be politically very talented, and career-wise was very unfortunate.

The city, rich in coal and iron mines, is troubled by accidents which take the lives of hundreds of miners each year.

Meng left the phrase “晋官难当” upon resigning, which literally means ‘it is really hard to be an official in Shanxi province” – many cities in that province are haunted by mine accidents.

The problem is, the four previous incumbents all served for less than a year, without having fully understood the problem. Something happens. Then they pack and leave.

The trouble is, in China, decision-making often depends on the consensus of the party secretary and head of government (if they are not the same person). Surely this is not the best case scenario. But while a new ‘scientific’ way of decision-making might take years to build, it is important to find good talent to serve as party secretaries and heads of local government.

I am not disputing the act of ‘take the blame and resign’ that many governments in the region are honouring. But you need to firstly establish a link between the person and the wrongdoing.

If the newcomer is forced to resign even without having understood the whole situation, let alone acting on it, it is simply counterproductive. The problem might never get resolved if nobody gets a chance to really give it a go.

Basic economics is often de-prioritised for the sake of finding someone to blame; a scapegoat. The opportunity cost of having everything in a circle is simply too high.

Until now, you might wonder how this is related to government modernisation. Isn’t the same happening to government projects?

The government CIO of an advanced country in the region recently resigned over a failed government shared network project, although independent inquiry found no wrongdoing on his part.

Someone took the responsibility, but the loss to the government was the bigger blow. The resigned CIO is known to FutureGov for many years and we believe in his abilities.

Penalties are needed to keep people accountable. Often even if the person has done nothing wrong. But it is better to keep him or her on the job so that the learning experience will be of value to them and to others. Also, it takes time and effort for someone new to get to grips with the job, let alone reaching the same level of competency.

And in extreme cases, the situation in Linfen, where a pressing problem needs to be solved but no one dares to take it on, might be repeated elsewhere.

However, I cannot see a more pragmatic approach on the horizon as blame culture becomes the norm in both the government and public domain.

A few days ago, the new Party Secretary of Linfen City – a veteran of the coal industry who is described as ‘not interested a political careerist’ – was appointed. Hopefully the city will have a new mayor soon. And hopefully the mayor will have the chance to at least try to lay the accident curse to rest.