Accountability system needed for successful reform

A workable accountability system is necessary to ensure reformers take their job seriously, says an article in China Business News. Excerpts:

The Communist Party of China Central Committee held its first conference for the deepening reform leadership team recently. This means China's reform has reached the stage of implementation. The relevant reform departments at local level are also expected to come into function soon.

The first conference of the reform team proposed that there should be an accountability system for reformers. Civil servants who fail in their duties in future reform will be held accountable for their failure or dereliction of duty. Yet, establishing the system is one thing and putting it into practice is another, which entails more efforts by authorities at various levels.

Given the current situation, it is necessary to build such a system. The past 30 years of reform history indicates setbacks and even failures are unavoidable and there will be grave consequences if the reformers make major errors. It takes wisdom and courage to achieve successful reform results.

While supporters agree to deepen reform in an all-round manner, the government still needs to be vigilant to negative attitudes towards reform. To reform is to "abolish" outdated systems and then "establish" more efficient systems that better fit the needs of development.

The future reform will certainly affect the interests of vested interest groups. It is natural that some people, especially those with vested interests, will be pessimistic about reform or even resist reform. The aforementioned accountability system is thus necessary to force such people to take reform seriously.

A modern government needs clearly defined accountability systems. Likewise, there should be restrictions and rules for reform, a main task of the government.

Because of the complications of reform, there should be a clear labor distribution among different departments and officials and it should be easy to measure if the responsible party has or has not done its duty to make the system workable and transparent.