An attempted suicide earlier this month in Zhaijia Town of Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning Province, has exposed a debt-ridden town government to public scrutiny and, at the same time, put the issue of village committee transparency in the spotlight.

On March 3, a peasant woman surnamed Xing, 44, tried to kill herself by swallowing toxic pesticide after again failing to receive the money owed to her family by the Zhaijia township government.

After five days in intensive care in a Shenyang hospital, Xing's health improved. But the mental anguish remained.

In July, Xing's husband was sent to prison after he, in an act of desperation, sprayed petrol over the then township magistrate.

Xing said officials of the township, which is in Shenyang's Tiexi New District, borrowed 80,000 yuan (US$9,600) in the summer of 1997 from her family, saying they lacked money for local development projects.

They promised to return the cash in a fortnight, with favourable interest. However, seven years have passed and despite hundreds of visits by the couple to get their money back, the answer is still "no."

Xing and her husband have accumulated about 100,000 yuan (US$12,000) over the past decade by planting vegetables before they lent the money to the local government.

Since her husband was sent to jail, Xing has had to support the family and a teenage son alone. The last time she attempted to get the family savings back, Xing learnt that the township government was deep in debt to the tune of 58 million yuan (US$7 million). Unfortunately, Xing's family is not alone in the township, which oversees 11 villages.

Du Xidong, a newly appointed government director for the town, says the debt has been burdening the area for 10 years. During the past decade, leaders of the township government have been changed twice.

"An investigation has started into the debt issue and the money borrowed from individual villagers needs to be returned step by step," Du says.

As part of their push to get their money back, local farmers have been calling for more administrative transparency.

Caojia Village has dismissed its former leader due to his muddling in village committee accounts.

Officials with the Tiexi New District government have started investigating the town's debt problem.

Although farmers are now able to elect village leaders, there is no real mechanism to supervise them.

A national co-ordination group working for villagers' self-governance has pledged to give farmers more of a say in decision-making processes and is encouraging voters to actively keep an eye on the people they have selected.

While democratic elections have been established, the creation and implementation of democratic decision-making processes, management and supervision still lags far behind, says Zhang Mingliang, director of the Department of Construction of Grass-roots Government and Community at the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

The group, jointly established in June by several ministries and institutions, has focused on promoting grassroots democracy and supervising the actions of village leaders.

It has promised to enhance the supervision of village committees and inspect more village self-governing processes this year.

"The elected leaders risk losing their posts if they do not properly represent their people," Zhang says.

According to Li Xueju, minister of civil affairs, Chinese farmers have shown great enthusiasm in performing their political rights, with an average turnout of above 90 per cent in village committee elections.

Direct elections have been taking place since 1998 in China. According to statistics from the National Statistics Administration in 2003, China has a rural population of 768 million, accounting for 59.47 per cent of the whole population.

According to the law concerning the elections, members of village committees and the administrative organization of a village are elected by all eligible voters among candidates they nominated. Once in office, the village head is accountable for the villagers and their well-being.

In Fubao Village of Kunming, capital of Southwest China's Yunnan Province, for example, rules and regulations surrounding the responsibilities of the village committee and the rights of the village congress are publicized.

The village's balance sheet and other important information are posted regularly on an announcement board.

"All major affairs of our village should be submitted to congress for discussion," says Yang Ming, head of Fubao Village. "And everything decided should be in consultation with the villagers."

In Fubao, congress of villagers meets on a regular basis. Every six months, the work of village officials is evaluated and reported to the congress. Their wages are determined by the outcome of the assessment.

"Chinese farmers' awareness of democracy is amazingly strong," says Yang Ni, an official with the Yunnan Civil Affairs Bureau.

A village in Yunnan dismissed all of its village committee members in accordance with legal procedures in 2002.

"The exercise of autonomy in Chinese villages will undoubtedly boost the development of democracy at grass-roots levels," Yang said.

Since the end of 2000, the Yunnan provincial government has been co-operating with several institutions from the United States, Norway and Denmark to teach village, town and county officials about elections. More than 900 people have so far received training.

(China Daily March 31, 2004)