China's legislature focuses supervision on workers' safety, environment
9/3/2006 13:38
The Chinese legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing
Committee, has saved people's lives through its law enforcement inspections that
led to closures of many deadly mines and polluting plants.
"The
law-enforcement supervision work by the NPC Standing Committee is aimed at
defending people's fundamental interests," said Wu Bangguo, chairman of the NPC
Standing Committee, in his work report to a plenary meeting of the Fourth
Session of the Tenth NPC on Thursday.
The NPC Standing Committee inspected
the implementation of six laws, including law on work safety and law on water
pollution prevention and control in 2005, the top lawmaker said.
"Work safety
incidents, which always involve losses of human lives, attracted wide public
attention. Therefore, in 2005, the NPC Standing Committee examined the work
safety law implementation from various aspects," Wu said.
The NPC Standing
Committee found a series of protruding problems in coal mine production safety
area by hosting more than 60 forums and organizing lawmakers to conduct field
study in more than 70 enterprises and over 30 coal mines, he said.
To better
resolve the problems, the legislature raised a series of suggestions to the
government "to reduce the number of severe gas explosion cases in two years,
improve work environment of small coal mines in three years, and expand the
industrial injury insurance system in all the country's the high-risk industries
by the end of 2006," he said.
As a result, the government closed down 5,243
illegal coal mines and coal mines without enough work safety facilities last
year. And government officials have withdrawn 562 million yuan worth of stakes
from those illegal coal mines following the order from the Central
Government.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
Resources saving and environmental
protection are China's basic national policy and concerned with the overall
situation of economic and social development, Wu said.
"Last year, the NPC
Standing Committee set the issues relating to resources and environment on top
agenda on its supervision work. The legislature assigned a group to examine the
law enforcement on water pollution prevention and control, and heard and
discussed the report on current energy security situation made by the State
Council," said Wu.
The legislature found that the strain in water supply and
demand and the severe water environmental deterioration should be blamed for the
unreasonable economic structure and the extensive economic growth mode. It urged
governments at all levels to solve the problems by fully implementing the
conception of scientific development, he said.
After considering
legislature's suggestions, the State Council has mapped out measures to transfer
economic growth mode, improve innovation capacity, speed up economic structure
adjustment and vigorously develop circular economy, so as to relieve the
pressure from resources strain and environmental deterioration.
Facing the
issues of resources strain and environmental deterioration in the past few
years, the Fifth Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee put forward the goals
of reducing energy cost for per unit GDP by 20 percent in the coming five years
and curbing the environmental deterioration trend by and large.
LETTERS OF
COMPLAINT
Wu said last year, the top legislature heard and discussed ten
reports made by the relevant departments of the State Council, the Supreme
People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate for the promotion of the
rule of law, Wu said.
In addition, the legislature also inspect the
implementation of agriculture law, statistics law, labor law and lawyer law in
2005, said Wu.
"The NPC Standing Committee also paid great attention to
letters and visits and put the complaints widely aired by ordinary people as its
supervision priorities," said Wu.
In 2005 alone, the legislature received
more than 130,000 letters and 58,000 visits. Urban housing demolition and
migrant worker's wage in arrears were the issue frequently mentioned in the
letters and visits.
Therefore, the NPC Standing Committee, together with the
relevant departments of the State Council, promoted the settlement of the
issues. By January 2006, local governments and enterprises all over the country
returned a total of 167.3 billion yuan of wage in arrears, accounting for 90
percent of the total defaulted wages before 2003, Wu said.
Xinhua Writer Meng Na
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