China to Abolish Rail Ministry to Curb Corruption

Last Updated: 11, March 2013

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China on Sunday announced plans to streamline several government ministries, doing away particularly with the powerful but scandal-plagued Ministry of Railways. The move is the seventh bureaucratic restructuring in three decades, according to Xinhua, a state-owned news agency.

China’s billion dollar rail system has been one of country’s flagship development projects in recent years but its rapid expansion has seen a series of scandals and widespread allegations of corruption, with former railways minister Liu Zhijiun, who was sacked in 2011 and expelled from the ruling Communist Party last May, now awaiting trial on graft charges.

The railways ministry, which has been largely unreformed in comparison to other government bodies, is hugely powerful. Under Beijing’s current five-year plan, the ministry oversees annual investment of around $90 billion a year, equivalent to around 1 percent of China’s GDP.

With more than 2 million employees and a debt load larger than Denmark’s economy, the railways ministry will be split into administrative and commercial arms. China Railway Corporation will oversee the commercial duties, while safety and regulation will come under the Ministry of Transportation.

Other bureaucracy-level changes include bolstering a maritime body as China engages in island disputes with its neighbours, while the family planning commission, which oversees the controversial one-child policy, joins with the Ministry of Health.

The food and drug administration will become a fully fledged ministry, following a number of tainted product scandals, said Xinhua.

The latest streamlining abolishes four government bodies and cuts the number of ministries by two to 25 – a reflection of the public and leadership’s concern at corruption and wasteful overlapping of bureaucracy.

“The administrative system in effect still has many areas not suited to the demands of new circumstances and duties,” Ma Kai, secretary general of the State Council, told congress on Sunday.

Inadequate supervision had led to “work left undone or done messily, abuse of power and corruption,” Ma said, adding that some areas were insufficiently managed while others had “too many cooks in the kitchen”.

However, David Goodman, a China politics expert at the University of Sydney, pointed out that reorganisation alone could not stamp out corruption.

“They are very serious reforms,” Goodman said, “but they are not going to attack that question of making officials more accountable and more responsible.” Restructuring would only bring about “government efficiency within the limits of what is possible,” but “it doesn’t stop people behaving badly,” he said.

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