OPINION> Commentary
Sanitation or insanity?
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-19 07:22

Who should have the say over whether a city is sanitary enough?

The residents - that's who. For the city should be kept clean and tidy for them without causing any inconveniences.

Yet, what the city of Jiaozuo in central China's Henan Province did to earn the title of one of the nation's most sanitary cities defies logic.

Small restaurants, stalls selling papers or magazines and barbershops were all closed overnight before an inspection team arrived to assess its sanitary standard.

And new signboards replaced the old ones on the streets.

Although the environment is now much cleaner, residents are disappointed they can no longer buy breakfast, papers and bath in public bathhouses.

Evidently, such efforts to win a title are not in their interests.

We Chinese have a popular phrase for such window dressing: performance project (zhengji gongcheng), a project that will only win credit for a leader's performance or government as a whole.

Such projects usually fritter away taxpayers' money.

Jiaozuo is not the first city to do ludicrous things to impress the national inspection team.

To be fair, the city government only carried out tasks according to the criteria the inspection team uses to judge whether a city is worthy of the 'sanitary' tag.

The process was launched to improve urban sanitation nationwide in 1989.

But it has turned out to be little more than a juvenile game of hide and seek between the inspection team and local governments.

Ludicrous things take place in one city after another.

One reportedly painted a barren cliff green to give the false impression of grass and trees.

There should be no reason for the inspection team to be kept in the dark.

Then why do such games continue to be played two decades after they began?

Can we have other ways to get local residents involved to make their city really clean and tidy?

When an activity supposed to serve the interests of residents turns out to have nothing to do with them but instead works against them, the motivation to continue the scheme must be questioned.

To really make a city clean, tidy and comfortable to live in, local residents should play an important role.

Any effort by a government intended to make life easier and more comfortable will undoubtedly be popular with residents.

So if a government is properly held accountable, the city it manages should not lack sanitation and there should be no need for such silly activities and, for that matter, sanitation appraisals.

(China Daily 03/19/2009 page8)