CHANGSHA, China - During the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in August,
residents of the Chinese capital were impressed by the blue sky over the city;
many of them had almost forgotten the sky could look so clean.
Part of Beijing’s efforts to control its notorious air pollution during the
Olympics was to sharply reduce the number of vehicles on the roads, about 70%
of government-owned cars and 50% of private cars were banned from driving in
the city from July 20 to September 20.
Inspired by the success, Beijing Municipality decided to continue car
restrictions after the Games, starting from October 1 and 30%
of government vehicles were to be "sealed up" and kept in garages.
The remaining official cars, together with private vehicles, were restricted
from driving on the roads from November 10, with one out of five cars banned
from driving on weekdays. Shanghai Municipality and Jiangsu province have
followed suit.
Beijing's authorities seem to be operating as usual despite the great reduction
in the use of official cars, which raises the question: if the government could
function so well without so many cars, why did it spend so much public money to
buy and maintain so many vehicles in the first place?
This issue has now become the focus of much public attention, with commentaries
in the media and Internet calling for the central government to launch reforms
of the current system, which they say lavished officials with cars at the
public's expense.
According to a popular estimate, there are more than 5 million government motor
vehicles in China, most of which are chauffeured sedans provided for officials
and paid for by public funds. The cost of drivers' salaries and to buy,
maintain, and fuel these cars was some 600 billion yuan ($878 million) in 2006.
By comparison, China spent in that year 610.4 billion yuan on education,
science and technology, and public health, 71.6 billion yuan on social security
and 181.7 billion on national defense.
Running on public funds, these cars seem much more costly than others.
According to the Hainan Daily, transport companies in Hainan province estimate
the cost of each 10,000 kilometers at 8,215.40 yuan, yet the figure for
government cars was 50,361 yuan, 6.13 times the former.
From 1986 to 2005, China’s administrative overheads, of which car maintenance
was a major portion, grew by 23 times, but the country’s gross domestic product
(GDP) increased by only 14.6 times during the same period.
What also upsets the public is official corruption involved in the equipment
and use of government cars, so much so that there is a new term in Chinese -
"corruption on wheels".
There have been many reports of local officials embezzling funds from education
and disaster relief funds to buy luxury cars for their own use. It is also
commonplace for officials to use government cars for private trips. At tourist
spots on holidays, one can find many government vehicles in the parking lots.
Officials also use government cars to send their children to school. For
example, Huashang News reported that 32 government cars were seen in front of
two primary schools on September 1 in Baoji, a relatively poor city in
northwestern Shaanxi province.
Obviously, all government cars are not needed for official business trips all
the time, so people are now asking exactly how many cars would be enough to
keep the government functioning.
According to a commentary by Zhujiang Evening News, China could get rid of 80%
of its government cars without hurting its daily operation and efficiency. It
said that during the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in
2006, the capital city government garaged 80% of its 620,000 cars. And "the
capital city was in good order and traffic was smooth".
"If Beijing, the national capital, could run well with 80% less government
vehicles, so can the whole country. The whole country may just need a million
government cars," it said.
In fact, since the mid-1990s, the central government has tried several times to
reign in abuse of the government car system through issuing toughly-worded
regulations, but they have had little effect.
Because of this, many people doubt the harsh restrictions on government cars
planned for Beijing, Shanghai and Jiangsu will really be implemented. Even the
Shanghai Daily quoted a local civil servant as saying that the new rules were
symbolic at best, because there were no specified punishments for violations or
an effective system to catch rule-breakers.
"Officials' own interests are concerned here. Who does not want to have a free
car at his disposal? In early 1990, only minister-level officials were entitled
to have a government car. But now even a section head in a small city
government may 'own' a government car," a sociology researcher with the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences said.
But the ever-rising number of government cars and the flagrant abuse of their
usage has become a source of growing public discontent. "You can see in recent
public protests, such as the riots in Weng'an, Guizhou province, in late June,
and the recent ones in Guangdong, protesters smashed or set fire to government
vehicles to vent their anger. This has rarely been seen before," the
sociologist said.
It is time for the central government to take the issue seriously before it
becomes a potential threat to social stability, he adds.
If the government is serious and determined to tackle the problem through the
rule of law, it need only hand over the budget and legislate laws to the
National People’s Congress, which would then be responsible for restricting the
number and usage of government cars. Local people's congresses could follow
suit, and the management of government cars would be more transparent and open
to public supervision, the sociologist said. "The question is not whether it
can be done, but rather whether there is the will to do it."
Stephanie Wang is a freelance writer from China.
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