Ordinary citizens should be included in government decision-making to avoid the squandering of funds, said a signed article in the Workers' Daily. An excerpt follows:

The procuratorate of Hunyuan County, a poverty-stricken county in Shanxi Province in north China, has just built a luxury office building costing more than 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million), although its total budget for the year is less than 100 million yuan (US$12 million).

The building is so extravagant that it tops all the buildings in county procuratorates of the province. It is said that the building was partly funded with money from fines collected from overloaded lorries.

It is not unusual to see luxury office buildings, especially office buildings for governmental branches, in poverty-stricken counties. The question is, when will it stop?

The government gathers money from taxpayers, so it must make good use of every penny it gets and the public has the right to supervise how the money is spent.

In practice, some localities keep the public in the dark as to how the government funds are used. And they do not have effective appraisal of the budgets of their subordinate branches. One of the possible results is that money earmarked for special use is squandered by some officials at will.

In counties where ordinary citizens cannot make ends meet, local governments are located in "landmark" buildings and officials ride in deluxe automobiles. The willful spending of government money not only produces high administrative costs, but also nurtures corruption.

The public does not have access to supervising government budgets, nor do they have any say to influence decisions before they are made. This is the key reason why so many poverty-stricken counties have built luxury offices.

It is doubtless that some officials are well-disciplined, but such discipline far from guarantees good use of administrative power. A detailed rule binding money usage could perform this function.

Besides, it is also necessary to inform the public about the budget and accept their supervision. To some extent, public discussion and supervision are necessary to avoid misuse of government funds.

(China Daily May 15, 2006)