Two leaders of local water facilities in northwest China were fired recently for their incompetence that led to a four-day cutoff of drinking water supply for 400,000 local people last November.

The mismanagement was caused by mutual default of debts between local state-run drinking water supply facilities and the electricity bureau of Dali County, Weinan City in Shaanxi Province, according to officials of the Weinan municipal government.

The municipal government issued orders to dismiss Qin Yongshou, director of the rural water supply office of Dali County, and Zhang Zhengmin, manager of the county's water plant, an independent enterprise under the administration of the office.

Founded in 1985 amid the program to supply clean drinking water to local villagers, the rural water supply office was designed to supply drinking water to half of the population of the county, including people in the county seat and 18 of the county's 33 towns.

The rural water supply office runs the largest fine-quality drinking water source in the county.

The county's water plant was the largest one among 14 water supply stations that formed the office's water supply network. The plant was mainly responsible to supply drinking water for 60,000 people in the county seat, and its supply accounted for 45 percent of the total capacity of the county.

According to Guan Kuanmin, deputy director of the rural water supply office, the water plant owed an accumulative debt of 280,000 yuan (US$34,000) to the office, and the office itself owed 240,000 yuan (US$29,000) to the power supply company managed by the electricity bureau.

Known as "triangle debts", it used to be a common practice for Chinese state-run enterprises to owe each other money in doing business. The Chinese government made a series of efforts and campaigns to solve the debt-chain problem in 1990s.

As a result, the power supply company, run by the electricity bureau, discontinued power supply to the rural water supply office and its water networks. Power cutoff led to water cutoff between Nov. 15 and 19 in the county seat and 18 towns, affecting 400,000 people.

Residents and villagers had to buy water from neighborhoods where there were wells. To save money, some villagers had to do cooking by using dirty water from local brooks.

Wu Jincai, a county local, angrily told Xinhua at the time: "We pay our water bills on time. Why stop water supply? The disputes between the three parties have nothing to do with us."

Officials with the rural water supply office said that they were unable to pay back money they owed to the power supply company because the subordinated water plant refused to pay money to them.

The water plant argued that it was in financial difficulties. It took out loans from the Weinan branch of the China Construction Bank to upgrade water supply networks in the county seat amid a renovation program to rebuild the old part of the county seat.

The plant was still in arrears of 300,000 yuan (US$36,000) to the bank, which later filed a lawsuit against the plant and the court ordered to freeze its accounts. In addition, many water users defaulted on their water bills and therefore the plant was financially incapable of paying off the debts, according to plant officials.

The power company held that in a market economy, electricity isa kind of goods for sale. It notified the rural water supply office many times to pay back the 240,000 yuan it owed. The plant was unresponsive.

The power company said, according to the relevant state regulations concerning electricity supply, it was entitled to cut off power supply if a user failed to pay power fees for one month. "The power company is an enterprise. It has to survive, and so it has no other way but stopping supply," a power company official said.

People's anger aroused the attention of media and consequently the upper Weinan government, which stepped in and initiated the investigation.

The government decided to dismiss the two leaders after the investigation, saying it was a badly negative case that hurt people's "fundamental interests" because of bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, the government gave a "warning" punishment to Zhang Fulai, deputy director of the county's electricity bureau, and ordered a written self-criticism be made respectively by Zhou Runde, director of the county's water resources bureau, and by Yang Jianzhong, director of the electricity bureau.

(Xinhua News Agency January 12, 2004)