Premier Wen Jiabao Friday pledged to further transform
government functions this year, urging that governments at all
levels must fulfill all of their responsibilities.
Wen made the remarks in a report on the work of the government
delivered at the opening of the Second Session of the Tenth
National People's Congress, the top legislature of China.
The government bears heavy and demanding responsibilities in the
effort to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects, he
said, adding that governments and leading cadres at all levels need
to adapt to new situations and tasks and continually raise their
administrative and management ability.
The government must pay more attention to social administration
and public service work. In particular, he said, "We need to
speedup the establishment of emergency response mechanisms and
improve the government's ability to deal with public crises."
While transforming government functions, efforts will be
intensified to adhere to scientific and democratic policy-making,
by integrating public participation, expert evaluation and
government decision-making to ensure that the government's policies
are scientific and correct.
Governments at all levels must exercise their power and perform
their duties within the scope of their authority defined by law and
in accordance with legal procedures, and consciously accept the
oversight of the general public, the premier said.
"We must improve the government's style of work and improve the
overall quality of public servants," he said. "We must work harder
to build a clean government and fight more vigorously against
corruption."
(Xinhua News Agency March 5, 2004)
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