Party officials brought to account by new rule
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The official said Beijing's regulation imposes far stricter punishments on officials who neglect their duties.
For instance, China's national regulation stipulates that officials who have resigned over a violation of discipline can still be appointed to another post in the government. Beijing's regulation, in contrast, does not include a similar opportunity for redemption.
"Instead, we have added another provision, which says officials who have failed in their duties should be placed on probation for three to six months," the official said.
Moreover, officials who are under a cloud must wait for more than a year after their resignations before they can occupy posts that are in the same administrative level as they had formerly been in. And they cannot be promoted for at least two years.
Zhu Lijia, a public administration expert at the Chinese Academy of Governance, told China Daily that Beijing's regulation is reasonable because an official's powers should not exceed his responsibilities.
"Party officials who fail to perform their duties should be punished, since they usually have a greater say in important decisions," he said.
Zhu said he questions whether officials who resign in disgrace should be allowed to continue working for the government in the future.
"Almost all of the officials can be appointed to a similar post in a different place in the country, and this makes the public start to doubt the effectiveness of the whole accountability system," he said.
One example of these difficulties can be found in the case of Liu Daqun, a former chief of the agriculture department in North China's Hebei province, who was punished for his part in a tainted-milk scandal that occurred in 2008. Despite his implication, Liu was elected mayor of Xingtai city, a city in Hebei province, the following year.
In the 2008 scandal, toxic milk powder killed at least six infants and sickened 300,000 children in China.
