Hao Xuguang: Entrance to the Official Property Disclosure System in Search of Minimum Resistance
(Source: "Shanghai Securities News" Date:2014-08-08）
The complexity of official property disclosure requires forward-looking disclosure policies. When formulating policies, pay attention to long-term goals and consider the impact and reflections of the policies. If we can establish an effective feedback mechanism and formulate supporting measures based on in-depth consideration of the side effects of the policy and predicting whether the policy will meet the expected goals after implementation, it is expected that possible side effects will be reduced to a minimum.
No matter how strong the opposition is, the trend is now clear and the step of publicizing officials’ property is inevitable. However, property disclosure is very difficult and complicated to operate. What exactly is feasible and possible under the current national conditions of our country? This also requires creative thinking.
The complexity of official property disclosure requires forward-looking disclosure policies. When formulating policies, pay attention to long-term goals and consider the impact and reactions of the policies. Because for a long time, my country's officialdom has long formed the inertia of "policies at the top and countermeasures at the bottom." Therefore, in order to avoid the dilemma of "countermeasures at the bottom" during policy implementation, it is necessary to prepare "countermeasures" for the countermeasures below before the policy is introduced, study and establish a leading indicator system that reflects the operation of the policy, and consider alternative "countermeasures" options. This requires policymakers to have professional information collection capabilities and be able to conduct "potential problem analysis" to explore what adverse factors may arise during policy implementation that may interfere with policy implementation, what possible side effects may be, and the possible reactions and resistance that will arise from people involved in the policy plan. In particular, it is necessary to anticipate what "countermeasures" the target groups of the policy will adopt. For example, according to a very limited survey by the media, there are many officials at all levels who own multiple houses. How will they deal with being disclosed? What kind of contingency measures will they be inspired to take when faced with the exposure of property secrets? If we can establish an effective feedback mechanism and formulate supporting measures based on in-depth consideration of the side effects of the policy and predicting whether the policy will meet the expected goals after implementation, it is expected that possible side effects will be reduced to a minimum.
Once the public disclosure system is implemented, two huge potential problems will surface: if the officials whose assets are publicized have too much property, these officials will definitely obstruct it in various ways; if the public property is very small and the people do not believe it, they will face the risk of the government breaking its trust.
We cannot take the issue of official asset disclosure for granted and assume that officials in developed countries and regions must fully disclose their assets. In fact, the situation in each country is very different. According to the author’s understanding, in South Korea, there are1800Officials have public assets. In France, only the prime minister and president have to disclose their assets. In the United States, not all officials must disclose their assets.
In my country’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, declarations of interests and investments of public officials are carried out, rather than property declarations. Public officials in the Hong Kong SAR who declare property are divided into five categories: grassroots civil servants, officials under the political appointment system, members of the executive council system, the chief executive, and members of parliament. The filing requirements for each level are different.
Based on the forward-looking requirements of policy formulation and the experience of developed countries and regions, the author believes that the following contents can be considered:
The first is to have better troops and simpler administration. According to incomplete statistics, my country's current financial support personnel include staff of administrative agencies, party and government agencies, social groups and public institutions allocated by the financial allocation, and their number is4000More than ten thousand people. Comparing the total number of civil servants in various countries around the world, our country's civil servants have room to be greatly streamlined. But how much can be streamlined requires detailed analysis and research. After downsizing, officials will have to declare their property because this position is very valuable. Property declaration is a sword hanging over an official's head. If an official does not perform well, he may be replaced at any time, and the remaining people will cherish this opportunity even more. After streamlining the process, the property disclosure will be done, the number of people will not be too large, and the operation will be relatively easy. At the same time, streamlining administration and delegating power will reduce the possibility of officials using their power to seek rent.
Second, divide the time periods. The period can be divided from a management perspective. Properties before this period can be forgotten. First, it may be because it cannot be rectified. Second, in order to stabilize the civil service team, the policy principle of not "retrospection to the past" needs to be considered. However, problems that arise after the period are taken seriously. During the anti-corruption campaign in Hong Kong, it was discovered that there were too many problems and there were no good ways to solve these "problems", so they adopted the approach of leaving past blaming and severely punishing corruption that occurred after a specified period of time. It turns out that this is very effective.
Third, classified management. It is necessary to understand which level and department of civil servants at the ministerial, bureau or division level are prone to corruption. Ministries and commissions with large resources and ministries with few resources must be classified. Ministers, directors, and division chiefs must be classified, and provincial governors, mayors, county heads, and town chiefs must be classified. The classification is for better management. What needs to be disclosed are the properties of officials who have control over a large amount of administrative resources, such as approval powers.
Fourth, implement it in stages. You may consider announcing it internally first. It is not necessary to announce it to the whole society at the beginning. You may wish to gradually accumulate experience before starting. Of course, this requires setting a timetable, specifying when, which departments and officials at which levels need to be announced, so that the public can have stable expectations.
Fifth, publicize the property first. The formulation and promulgation of a policy should be easier first and then more difficult. Based on the current situation in our country, the easiest thing to operate is "real estate publicity", because now a lot of real estate information in big cities has been connected to the Internet, and it is relatively easy to implement.
Sixth, new officials need to disclose their assets. It is difficult to deal with existing problems, so we can first focus on solving incremental problems. Newly promoted officials must have their assets disclosed before taking office, and they must also disclose their assets when they are promoted or transferred.
Seventh, implement a silent period system. Some Western countries stipulate that officials with great macro-management powers cannot engage in management-related work within five years after their term of office expires. This is called a silent period. The author believes that we can learn from this system.
Eighth, the property disclosure system should be simple rather than complicated. The system must be strict, but if it is overcorrected, there will be too many negative effects, making it impossible to enforce it. Therefore, the system should not be too cumbersome and the content that needs to be announced should not be too detailed. Moreover, looking at foreign examples, the more underdeveloped the country, the more detailed the public declaration and the more corruption. For example, in countries such as the Philippines and Nigeria, the official property disclosure system is very cumbersome and detailed, but corruption has always been serious. Therefore, the official property disclosure system does have the effect of curbing corruption, but if it is too cumbersome, it will be difficult to implement, and the role of curbing corruption will be out of the question.
(The author is a professor at the w88 casino of International Business, w88 casino)
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