Xinjiang assigns 76,000 officials to poor villages

Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have assigned 76,000 officials to villages in 2018 to fight poverty and maintain stability.

In an effort to enhance work in extremely poor villages and to alleviate poverty, the Communist Party of China (CPC) Committee in Xinjiang has assigned 76,000 officials and 12,000 working groups to cover every village in the region, the Xinjiang Morning Post reported on Thursday.

Those officials started to work in villages on Monday. Among the 76,000 officials, 2,578 officials selected from universities in Xinjiang will be assigned to each extremely poor village.

“The officials are mainly responsible for implementing regional policies. Their close involvement with ethnic residents would erase estrangement, which would benefit regional stability in the long run,” Dong Yong, a professor from Urumqi National Cadre College, told the Global Times on Thursday.

“The CPC Committee in Xinjiang will closely monitor the work of the village-based officials. It has decided to keep 60 percent of them from 2017 and recommended new officials for the groups, making sure that there are at least eight officials for large villages, six for middle-sized ones and five for smaller ones,” the Xinjiang Morning Post reported.

Dong said these officials have to put real effort into their work, otherwise it would become routine and will not have a substantial influence on local families.

“The work of village-officials in 2018 will focus on whether the hearts of cadres go along with their body,” he added.

An official who had worked in Hotan in 2014 surnamed Niu told the Global Times on Thursday that his experience helped his future work. “I’m more confident in handling local affairs because I learned how to effectively implement a task from my past experience,” Niu said.

Being a stationed officials, Niu said he engaged in a variety of activities with the local people, including solving their personal concerns, such as helping their children find proper schools.

In 2017, Xinjiang dispatched 53,400 officials and more than 9,500 working teams, the Xinhua News Agency reported.