Over 17,000 public opinions have been transferred through the
media and direct letters to the State Development Planning Commission
(SDPC), the country's policy-planning body, for it to use when
replenishing its draft of the 10th five-year development plan
(2001-05) this year. The draft will be submitted to the National
People's Congress session scheduled for early March, for approval.
It is the first
time that the body has pooled suggestions from the public.
It is hoped that
the suggestions will make the policy-making process easier
and add wider wisdom to it.
Policy making should
be based on the actual conditions of the country, conditions
with which the public are familiar and should consequently
have a say in. It should be an all encompassing procedure.
Without the involvement
of the public, a major link in the process, the procedure
would be segmented.
In this sense,
the activity itself, which ensures a procedural completeness,
holds more importance than which advice is accepted and which
discarded.
Its significance
also lies in its role of providing a more direct channel through
which to satisfy the needs of both the policy drafters and
the public.
Without the involvement
of the people, policy-planning is done by just a small circle
of experts.
With limited channels,
it is not surprising that they might not receive all the advice
or resources they need to create well-rounded policies.
At the same time
people who want to have their suggestions on the development
of the country heard may be discouraged by a lack of proper
channels available to them.
This gap is an
obstacle to the drafting of rational policies.
The central planning
body's collection of public suggestions however, is filling
that gap. And the collection should be extended to all policy-making
processes in the future.
Unfortunately the
public opinions collected may not have chance to help enrich
the new five-year plan draft prepared for the National People's
Congress session, to be opened early next month.
After the SDPC
receives the suggestions, it will take a long time for it
to assess them and single out those which will enrich the
development plan.
In the future,
it would be better if it carries out the collection earlier.
(China Daily 02/13/2001)
|
