By IANS,
Beijing : China’s cabinet has called for increased openness in government affairs in order to ensure that officials work in a lawful and efficient manner.
“We should stick to lawful, scientific and democratic policy-making and increase the scope of publicity, especially for major reform plans, policies and projects that are directly related to the people’s interests,” said a circular that was jointly issued Tuesday by the State Council and the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.
The circular stressed that expenditures and budgets for government departments at all levels, as well as data on key construction projects, must be publicised in detail, reported People’s Daily.
According to the document, information on major emergencies, such as investigation results and details on government efforts to address the emergencies, should be released to the public in an “objective and timely manner”.
“Local government departments must make more efforts to ensure transparency in government affairs in order to protect the people’s rights to know about and supervise the government,” said the circular.
The circular referred to obstacles for transparency efforts, including a lack of information, non-standardised publicity procedures, poorly designed information-sharing systems and problems regarding the distinction between classified information and public information.