Ministry admits errors in report
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The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security has admitted that "technical errors" were the cause of mistakes in its online 2010 annual report on information publicity.
The report, which was posted to the ministry's official website on Monday, inaccurately said that "all statistics in this report were calculated from Jan 1, 2010, to Dec 31, 2009", that "in 2009, the ministry received 46 applications from the public asking for information" and that "the report was released on March 31, 2010", the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
Other websites that had links to the ministry's 2009 report revealed the release date of that report was also on March 31, 2010.
In another error, two links on the website were marked as places users should click to see both the 2009 and 2010 reports. But they only led to the 2010 report, the newspaper said.
Media reports of the errors provoked vehement discussion among the public.
Zhang Wei, a Beijing resident believes that parts of the 2010 report must have been copied from the previous year's report and that the writer simply forgot to change the date.
"Such mistakes should not occur in an annual report from a ministry - from such a high-profile government body," Zhang said. "Errors in dates make me suspect the accuracy of other figures in the report.
"I think the ministry should apologize on its website for the errors, or it might lose the public's trust."
The ministry noticed the errors on Tuesday and asked departments in charge to correct them, a publicity officer with the ministry told China Daily on Wednesday.
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