Anti-graft bodies target formalism

The central government has called for the crackdown on formalism to be stepped up so that the burdens on grassroots-level departments can be reduced.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China and the National Commission of Supervision, China's top anti-graft bodies, said that in the first two months of this year, the authorities investigated and dealt with 17,643 cases of formalism and bureaucracy, with 15,940 cases originating from the township level and below.

In an article published on their website on Friday, they said that some stubborn problems of formalism and bureaucracy persist, including recurring issues and new forms of disguised problems.

The root cause of the formalism problem often lies in higher-level authorities and departments. Some senior leaders have poor work styles and are disconnected from grassroots realities when making decisions. Another reason is that some grassroots cadres have misplaced views about performance and lack a sense of responsibility, focusing on pleasing superiors rather than serving the people.

The article emphasized the need to establish a sound mechanism for reducing burdens at the grassroots level. It urged the maintenance of a strict stance toward both longstanding problems and new situations, taking targeted measures to rectify common problems, plugging institutional loopholes and refining the responsibilities of officials.

Details of three typical cases of rectifying formalism to alleviate burdens at the grassroots level were released last month by the Central-Level Office for Reducing the Burden on the Grassroots by Combating Formalism.

In one case in the town of Weishui, in Songzi, Hubei province, some village cadres had five government apps and 26 work-related chat groups on their mobile phones. Some government apps stipulated study durations and points targets, requiring users to log in each day.

The village cadres were exhausted from responding to various work group messages and were required to upload documents and photos to work groups. They were also asked to conduct a safety inspection each month, requiring visits to various small restaurants and workshops for inspections and photo taking, which were then uploaded to government apps or work groups.

The office said such problems revealed a lack of consciousness in some areas in combating formalism and bureaucracy, and the problem of mobile phone-based formalism remained prominent, with mandatory downloads, logins and ranking announcements increasing the burden on grassroots cadres.

Ji Yaping, head of the School of Administrative Law at Northwest University of Political Science and Law, said many grassroots cadres expend significant energy and time on meaningless work, such as endless meetings, document issuance and filling out forms.

A meeting of the special mechanism for combating formalism to alleviate burdens at the grassroots level, led by the central authorities, was held in Beijing in June. It called on leading officials of departments and governments at all levels to participate in reducing burdens.

Party committees and governments at all levels were asked to prioritize combating formalism and bureaucracy as a key task in improving work styles and to conduct targeted rectification based on scientific and precise objectives.

"To address formalism, higher-level authorities should proactively arrange various meetings, documents, inspections and evaluations in a scientific way," Ji said. "Additionally, legal restrictions should be imposed on the empowerment of superiors, and checklists for inspections, evaluations and assessments should be formulated and publicized for supervision, so as to adhere to the principle that no action should be taken without legal authorization."

More attention should also be paid to strengthening the supervision of grassroots governments by the people, as they are directly affected stakeholders in the implementation of every policy, and their oversight and valid complaints serve as direct evaluations of the government, he added.