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Primary Need for Standardizing Government Behavior
In recent years, along with the reform of government institutions, change in government functions as well as the gradual establishment of a socialist market economic structure, the State has made unremitting efforts and achieved fruitful results in standardizing government behavior.
However, there is no need for reticence, the step taken to standardize government behavior is obviously lagging behind the requirement for market economic development.
The phenomenon in which the government acts both as an "athlete" and the "umpire", both as the formulator of the rules of a game and as a participant in the distribution of benefits, has not been completely eradicated; the overlapping of functions and unclearly defined division of labor between government departments have resulted in man-less or redundant management; some managerial personnel are still used to the way of management adopted under the planned economic system, etc.
Non-standardization of government behavior is, on the one hand, due to no distinction between administration and enterprise and between administration and institution, when the government is drafting policies and regulations, it will inevitably make these policies and regulations in favor of the enterprises and institutions with which it has countless ties, and has therefore brought about the monopoly of trade or unfair competition; and, on the other hand, due to relations of interest, it is hardly possible for the government to be fair, open and just while conducting market inspection and management.
As a result, some punishable market acts are not duly penalized, there exist serious phenomena of regional and departmental protection and the connection of power and benefit has fundamentally weakened government inspection and management over the market., which constitutes an important reason for the chaos in market order.
In addition, the government has managed many things which it shouldn't have to, thus decentralizing the limited managerial resources and resulting in insufficient management effort and also making it difficult to establish the authority of inspection and management.
At the same time, the government behavior caused by the motivation of benefits can easily become a hotbed for breeding corruption. The above-mentioned phenomenon, if allowed to develop unchecked, will bring adverse effect on the in-depth development of the work of rectifying and regulating the market economic order, to avoid this, it is essential to make up our minds to further standardize government behavior.
To this end, it is necessary to further straighten out the functions of government departments, clearly define responsibilities and division of labor, and avoid redundancy or omissions in management resulted from the overlapping of functions; government at all levels should dissociate themselves completely from various kinds of production and business activities and intermediary institutions, really introduce the separation of administration from enterprises, and administration from institutions, act as good "umpires" and refrain from acting as "athletes"; they should earnestly reduce administrative examination and approval, accelerate the liquidation of items for administrative examination and approval, administrative examination and approval without a legal basis or which can be substituted with market mechanisms should be resolutely abolished, with regard to administrative examination and approval which is needed to be retained according to law, it is necessary to make public procedures and simplify formalities, at the same time, it is necessary to establish a system of investigating and affixing responsibility for administrative examination and approval; it is necessary to break regional blockade and monopoly of trade, dismantle various kinds of "fence walls" that partition the market, forbid any work units and individuals from obstructing or interfering by any form in the entry of non-local products or engineering construction service into the local market, and really set up a unified, open, competitive and orderly market system.
Non-Standard Government Behavior Disrupts Bidding MarketThe bidding for the construction of a new outpatient building attached to the Zhangzhou City Hospital in Fujian Province, which is in serious violation of the bidding law, is only an example illustrating the chaotic situation of the bidding market. Over the past year and more since the bidding law was put into practice, various public works and the State's key construction projects that met the State-set scale standards have generally followed the bidding system. However, problems remain very serious, for example, some construction units resorted to deception by evading public bidding; in the process of invitation for bid, they violated the legal procedures, their operation was non-standard; administrative departments in charge of construction failed to
manage effectively, law enforcement was not strict enough, and no distinction was made between administration and enterprises and between administration and institutions. According to an official with the policy and regulation department under the State Development Planning Commission, the non-standard government behavior in public bidding is manifested mainly in the following four aspects:
1. Illegal administrative examination and approval, interference in bidding activities, and harming the legitimate rights and interests of the tender-invitation person.
2. Some bidding agencies make no distinction between administration and enterprise, practice monopoly operation, extort forced service, thus harming the rights and interests of the tender-invitation person.
3. The prevailing of local protectionism..
4. The tangible construction market is faced with many problems.
Experts have pointed out that a major innovation made in the bidding law is giving prominence to the leading position of the bid-invitation person. Law gives power to the bid-invitation party with the aim to give full play to the role of the market in the allocation of resources, to safeguard and promote fair competition and improve project quality. The fact that many government departments which act both as "umpires" and as "athletes" has disrupted the bidding market and finally bring hidden trouble to engineering quality.
This article, written by a commentator of People's Daily on the fundamental rectification and regulation of market economic order, is published on the front page of this newspaper on September 17.
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