Before starting transport reforms for officials throughout the country we have to understand how much money is wasted in the name of providing transport to officials, says an article in Qilu Evening Post. Excerpt:

The exorbitant amount paid to some government leaders in Liaoyang, Liaoning province, as transport allowance has sparked a heated debate on the Internet. Records show the auto reform has already cost the government 3.2 million yuan. But as a local leader said, the reform has indeed helped the government save money.

People hold different views on an 80,000-yuan allowance for one official. For some people, the allowance paid to government leaders is much less than that spent on their cars, fuel and drivers under the old system. In some cases, car expenses added up to 70 percent of the total office operating cost.

But some people don't take this fact into consideration. And that's the reason why the transport allowance paid to officials look huge. All local governments that have adopted the reform claim to have cut back on expenses.

But have we calculated the expenses on cars under the old system rightly? In some government departments, details of such expenses are confidential. So no one knows how much of that money was wasted by the government leaders and their drivers. That's why it's hard for the government to know exactly how much money the reform can save.

In fact, the nature of extravagant government expenditure on cars doesn't lie with economics, but with power.

Therefore, if local and provincial governments' power to allocate money for transport can't be restricted, the ongoing reform would be like putting the cart before the horse.

We can't expect any local government to break the trend and reveal the true expenses both under the old and new systems. What we can expect is that the central government devises a unified car reform plan based on real transport expenses, and encourages local governments to implement it.

(China Daily August 4, 2009)