Chongqing is set to reorganize its government departments after the State Council completed the super-ministries reforms. The municipality is now planning restructuring government departments in a wider scale following its completion of structural reforms in the agricultural sector, according to Liu Yongquan, deputy director of the Chongqing Commission for Public Sector Reform. Initial research regarding the reforms has begun, but there are still different voices concerning the methods and objectives of the reforms.

Chinese local governments across the country are preparing for structural reforms as required by the State Commission for Public Sector Reform.

“The reform plan has not yet been fully defined. It involves a number of elements, so we should proceed with caution,” Liu told Caijing magazine. Chongqing will keep the current organization of government departments until the restructuring begins.

Chongqing has initiated many structural reforms since it became a municipality directly under the central government. Reform in the field of communications was piloted in 2000. The reorganization of agricultural departments was carried out in August this year, establishing the Chongqing Agriculture Commission.

Four bureaus and offices amalgamated into the Commission, which has taken overall responsibility for administration and coordination of agricultural affairs.

The super-department system is very helpful towards the aim of integrating resources and coordinating affairs in a comprehensive manner, Xia Zuxiang, director of the Chongqing Agriculture Commission told Caijing.

The system also helps to promote streamlining. The Agriculture Commission was established with a simplified structure, cutting out 63 official posts, according to Xia.

There are experience as well as lessons from these structural reforms. As a result, voices inside the municipal government differ concerning such issues as the limits to the power and functions of the reorganized departments, as well as how to avoid overstaffing.

Power of decision-making, execution and supervision should be separated and assigned to different government departments, said Li Dianxun, director of the Chongqing Municipal Office of Legislative Affairs.

Changes to the functions of government departments should be in place before implementing the super-department system, said a local official.

More power should be decentralized to organizations at the lower levels, and non-governmental institutions should take more responsibility for dealing with non-official affairs, the official believed.

“Structural reforms that simply amalgamate departments do not make any sense and they are doom to failure. What counts is the reform of power transfer from governments,” said the official.

(China.org.cn by Yang Xi, September 21, 2008)