Nanjing City, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, has unveiled an accountability regulation for government officials and cadres of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to enhance supervision over Party members.

The regulation, which went into trial operation since March 11, has been widely reported by Chinese media during the past week, because in many occasions only government officials were punished for wrongdoing or negligence.

It stipulates that both government officials and Party cadres, which refers to Party members holding senior government or Party positions, will be held responsible when they do not perform their duties or perform in a wrong way, which leads to serious consequences and social impact.

The punishment for officials and cadres includes self-criticism, reprimand, suspension of duty or even dismissal.

"The regulation shows that the accountability system has been strengthened. Party chiefs at different levels should be responsible for major incidents when they are the leaders in local authorities," said Shao Jianguang, director of the Nanjing Municipal Institute of Party Building, during an interview with Xinhua Monday.

Nanjing is not alone in applying the accountability system to Party cadres. The southernmost province of Hainan brought a similar regulation into effect in 2007, which, however, did not garner much public attention at that time. Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong Province, is to enact its own regulation on April 1.

"It is a good signal that the local Party committees and governments started to explore the accountability system," said Chen Ru, an academician with the Nanjing Academy of Social Sciences.

In fact, Party cadres are disciplined for their faults at work. In the milk contamination scandal that left at least six children dead and about 300,000 sickened, the former Party chief of Shijiazhuang City Wu Xianguo was dismissed for not properly dealing with the delayed reporting by dairy producer Sanlu Group.

Party cadres, along with government officials, were also punished for the unrest in southwestern Weng'an County, Guizhou Province, last June and the fatal fire that caused 44 deaths in the southern city of Shenzhen last September.

Statistics from the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) showed that 4,960 officials above county level were punished nationwide during the year ending last November. In China, most government officials were also Party cadres.

However, there has previously been no institutions to punish Party cadres in most parts of China, said Shao Jianguang.

"Orders from higher level of Party committees should not be the only foundation in punishing a cadre," he said. "Accountability systems will solidify the Party's leadership in the long run."

China activated the official accountability system during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) crisis in 2003. More than 1,000 officials including the then Health Minister Zhang Wenkang were ousted for their attempts to cover up the epidemic or for incompetence in SARS prevention and control.

The system was later introduced to governments at all levels, and many officials lost their jobs for major accidents or other administrative mistakes.

Gan Yisheng, deputy head of the CCDI, said last December that they would improve the accountability system and were working on regulations to step up punishment against both government officials and Party cadres.

He said cases implicating officials above the county level and those concerning violations of discipline, commercial bribery, dereliction of duty and serious infringement of public interest would be severely dealt with.

(Xinhua News Agency March 30, 2009)