Inspiring profiles in dedicated service

By Cao Li (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-03-13 07:05

As a reporter covering one of the most important events on the country's political agenda for the first time, I have been impressed by the deputies' vigor in performing their supervisory role.

They take every opportunity to ask questions and offer suggestions concerning every aspect of the country's social and economic development. No issue seems too small to escape their attention. For example, I heard calls for a new law to lower the cost of meals aboard trains.

Although I had a little trouble understanding some of the deputies' accents, their enthusiasm and persistence moved me.

Huang Xihua, a deputy from the Guangdong delegation, suggested that the government scrap the 30-cent fee State-owned banks charge people who use their ATMs to check the status of accounts at other banks. Huang first called for the fees to be cancelled on June 2, 2006, the day after the country's State-owned banks started charging them.

A woman in Shanghai even sued a bank that had charged her 90 cents after she checked her account three times using the ATM of another bank. She wants the 90 cents back, though no verdict has been reached.

Huang renewed her call for the fees to be scrapped at this year's session of the NPC, and her campaign seems to be gathering steam by Monday 36 deputies had backed the proposal.

It's not just the 30 cents that drive her. Her goal is to make the country a better place to live.

Meanwhile, a deputy from the Zhejiang delegation said on Sunday that all members of society had to be healthy if the country was to succeed in spreading social harmony. The deputies are trying to make sure every step towards development is healthy.

The Zhejiang deputy discussed her feeling of responsibility to society during a group discussion about corporate social responsibility. She said she had been trying to make everyone who worked for enterprise as well as their family members happy.

"I provide them with comfortable dorms with computers and Internet, and I try to help them when they have problems," she said.

"And I will make sure that all of my employees who want to be promoted into management positions have happy families. Otherwise they are not qualified for the position."

Her methods may sound extreme, but her devotion to the concept of harmony could serve as an example to us all.

(China Daily 03/13/2007 page6)