Govts, officials with bad credit records ought to be punished

THE STATE COUNCIL, China’s Cabinet, has issued a guiding document calling for strict records of the creditworthiness of government officials and local government departments. Southern Metropolis Daily comments:

The top leadership has constantly advocated the construction of a credit system for local governments and officials as a means of promoting trust in government.

Government departments and government staff have power in hand, and some of them behave dishonestly. For example, some local governments sign contracts with enterprises, but then break the contracts at will, and some even issue a policy one day only to abolish it the next.

And after disasters or accidents in which people are killed or injured, some local governments try to conceal the true scale of the incident, by openly telling lies about the number of deaths or injuries. Their information proves false, yet the officials who try to hide the truth in this way are seldom punished.

The guiding document is not the first of its kind. In June, the State Council issued a guiding document to accelerate the construction of a comprehensive credit system. It required the trust-breaking behavior of government departments and staff be recorded, and warned local governments with bad credit records have to change their behavior.

But so far none of the guiding documents has listed any punitive measures for government departments or staff with bad credit records. In order to make the new guiding document more effective, it is necessary to define punitive measures, or it might become just another piece of paper.