Nearly in May, in the midst of the "spring drought," Yang Ronghua, in his 50s, was sitting in front of his family's dilapidated hut, alone, with nothing to do and his eyes full of confusion.
Yang Ronghua is a farmer in Jinlong Village, Shui Che Town, Xinhua County, Hunan Province. Since his birth, poverty has followed him, and he has not eaten meat for more than half a year, and the "ring of vegetables" is the daily staple food. The so-called "ba ba choi" is green vegetables without oil plus salt, then mashed and used for the following meal. In the winter, he lacked cotton clothing to protect him from the cold; spring came on schedule, sparing him the pain of freezing and discouragement, but his house, which leaked all over the place, became his biggest problem again.
In Jinlong village, there are more than 20 single poor households like Yang Ronghua. It is a rugged mountainous area with many peaks and it takes more than half a day to travel to the town hall. Not only is the economy backward, but also information is closed. Yang Ronghua has never read a book, hardly ever watched TV, and knows nothing about the Internet - but he does know that Xinhua County is a "national poverty-stricken county".
In 1994, Xinhua County was recognized as a national poverty-stricken county. Since then, funds for poverty alleviation have been coming in. According to the Xinhua County Finance Bureau, as of 2006, the county **** received a total of 537 million yuan in special funds for poverty alleviation. Together with the funds received by various departments of the county government for "poverty alleviation", the total amount exceeded 1 billion yuan.
But 14 years of central and local support has not changed the overall poverty in Xinhua County. Up to now, there are 78,000 people living in extreme poverty in the county, there is not a single industrial enterprise with an output value of hundreds of millions of yuan, the per capita GDP is less than a quarter of the national average, the per capita net income of farmers is less than half of the national average, the county and township liabilities are as high as 1.362 billion yuan, and two-thirds of the annual financial expenditure relies on the subsidies of the higher level.
Xinhua County is the epitome of China's 596 poor counties. The 14-year poverty alleviation journey of Xinhua County reflects the inefficiency and problems of administrative poverty alleviation, prompting people to reflect on the concept and mode of poverty alleviation.
Prosperity and poverty
At the end of January 2008, at the end of the lunar calendar, the snow, ice and rain disaster hit Xinhua County. A political "earthquake" hit Xinhua at the same time: Loudi Municipal Committee Standing Committee, served as Xinhua County Party Secretary Xie Wensheng, suspected of economic problems by the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, "double regulation", immediately arrested by the procuratorate, the investigation. Shortly before that, Chen Chengnan, the former director of the county finance bureau, was also under investigation, allegedly suspected of misappropriating poverty-alleviation funds to "buy votes" for his relatives.
The two men have fallen from power, bringing panic to the Xinhua County officialdom, and also triggering concern over the whereabouts of poverty alleviation funds, the largest resource in Xinhua County. With the depth of the investigation, Xinhua County, the use of poverty alleviation funds in chaos, the current poverty alleviation input system has been questioned.
Xinhua County is located in the central west of Hunan Province, to the Song Dynasty party attached to the central jurisdiction, because of the system of "King of the new land" named "Xinhua". 1949, Xinhua County under the jurisdiction of the Lengshuijiang Industrial Zone independent city, the financial resources greatly reduced; after the construction of the Tsuge Creek Reservoir, the county 16.5 million people. After 1949, the Lengshuijiang Industrial Zone under the jurisdiction of Xinhua County became an independent city, and its financial resources were greatly reduced.
Xinhua County, with a population of more than 1.3 million, is the most populous county in Hunan Province and a typical agricultural county, with nearly 90 percent of its population in agriculture. According to the county's statistical bulletin, the per capita net income of rural residents in Xinhua County was only 1,536 yuan in 2005, which was 47 percent of the national average. 14 years of poverty alleviation have not led to the formation of pillar industries in Xinhua County or the establishment of a sustainable and effective mechanism for poverty reduction. In some poor mountainous areas, farmers still rely on the sky to eat, unable to get rid of the "rich year out of poverty, disaster year back to poverty" cycle.
But compared with the county's overall poverty, luxury is everywhere in Xinhua County, and in early 2008, a reporter from "Finance and Economics" visited Xinhua County and saw that the newly built county party committee building and plaza were quite grand, and the official cars in front of the county institutions were luxurious, with a wide range of cars, such as a Honda, a Toyota, a Buick, etc. The head of the county's poverty alleviation office used a car to drive the county's poverty alleviation office, and the car of the head of the county poverty alleviation office used a car to drive the county government. The county poverty alleviation office leadership car, also worth more than 200,000 yuan.
A Xinhua County government official told reporters that almost all of the county units "a hand" in the county have two or three sets of real estate, several commercial stores.
With the completion of the new county government building, the development of the new city is in full swing. Xinhua County leaders are very proud of this. According to local leaders, the new city will double in size in the future. Informants said that the development of the new city is mainly driven by government departments, the county government bureaus are moving to the east, the new office building is also a more than a grandiose.
The huge contrast between urban and rural areas in Xinhua County is a "developmental approach to poverty alleviation" approach to torture: a huge amount of funds for poverty alleviation, where have they been used? How is the performance?
Competing for the "poverty cap"
Xinhua County became a national poverty alleviation county in 1994.
In 1986, in order to eliminate poverty in a targeted manner, the Chinese government decided to invest a certain amount of financial funds every year, supplemented by subsidized loans from state-owned banks, to support the 331 poorest counties in the country, solve their financial difficulties and help them develop. At the same time, each province also identified the corresponding key counties for poverty alleviation at the provincial level and invested the corresponding funds.
At that time, Xinhua County's neighboring counties and cities were all competing to become "well-off counties" and "top 100 counties", but Xinhua County's then-leadership had different "interests" and decided to fight for the "national poverty-stricken county". The county decided to strive for the "national poverty-stricken county". To this end, the county set up a poverty alleviation office in 1988, specifically responsible for the work, Yang Guoguo became the first director of the poverty alleviation office.
Yang Guoguo, 73, who retired a long time ago, told Caijing reporter that in order to become a "national poverty-stricken county", the first thing you need to do is to become a "provincial poverty-stricken county". In order to collect information, he became the director of the Poverty Alleviation Office, wearing straw shoes to the countryside to investigate, and wrote 600,000 to 700,000 words of survey information to reflect the poverty of Xinhua County to the higher level.
In 1989, Xinhua County was designated as a key county for poverty alleviation and development in Hunan Province, and Yang Guowu was hailed as the "number one contributor". Informed sources told the "financial" reporter, the then county governor was informed of the news, said excitedly: "Xinhua County from the fifth-class citizens to the fourth-class citizens, and in the future will continue to be third-class citizens, second-class citizens."
The next step is to fight for the "national poor county". Xinhua County made efforts in many ways. First of all, the county authorities found that the Red Army had passed through Xinhua during the Long March, so they took this opportunity to declare the "old revolutionary county", in order to fight for the "national poverty-stricken county" to increase the bargaining chips.
Second, take the "upper route". According to Yang Guoguo recalled, once, he heard that the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation a leader is meeting in Huaihua, Hunan Province, immediately and Xinhua County leaders, driving hundreds of kilometers in the snowy night, arrived at 4:00 a.m., in the leadership of the residence of the iron door into the cotton coat was also scratched. He was wearing a cotton shirt with exposed lint to report back, and the leader was very moved.
Once again, the media to create momentum. 1993, after Xinhua County multi-party efforts, a central media issued a reference to "Xinhua County, more than 500,000 farmers do not have enough to eat," the central government, the State Council, the main leaders of the instructions. This internal reference and leadership instructions, is since Xinhua County has become a "national poverty-stricken counties," the key factor. According to the reporter's understanding, the high-level leadership instructions, Xinhua County immediately access to all aspects of support. At that time, the competent vice governor of Hunan Province made a special trip to Xinhua County on-site office, to Xinhua County to bring a total of hundreds of millions of yuan of "real money".
In 1994, the State Council decided to increase the number of poor counties to 592. At this time, most grass-roots leaders have also found that the "national poor county" means free central and local financial subsidies, and many preferential policies. For a while, the qualification of "national poverty-stricken counties" became a scarce resource, and the competition was fierce. Because of the previous to do enough "homework", Xinhua County to seize the opportunity to "stand out", as desired to become "national poverty-stricken counties".
Yang Guoguo recalled to the "financial" reporter: "At that time, I was in Beijing waiting for the news. At 1 o'clock in the middle of the night, I learned the good news from a director of the State Council's Poverty Alleviation Office, and then ran for more than an hour in the goose feather snow to return to the basement hotel to tell the deputy governor of the county, who was stationed in Beijing together. We were both so happy and excited that we hugged and cried."
According to the requirements of the central government, all "national poor counties" should have a central ministry "to help the poor". At that time, the country's 592 poor counties want to compete for the Ministry of Finance's "counterpart". In the fierce competition, Xinhua County finally won, and won the Ministry of Finance "counterpart poverty alleviation" for seven years.
Yang Guowu told the "financial" reporter, he was once known by the State Council Poverty Alleviation Office of a familiar director called "old man". However, Yang was not offended. He explained that he didn't think it was sarcastic, but rather that it was an affirmation of his dedication to his work.
After his retirement, Yang Guoguo was not idle. He also went to Beijing from time to time to go to the central ministries and commissions for Xinhua County to fight for the "national soil and water conservation key counties", "national ecological construction key counties", "the national comprehensive agricultural development pilot counties" and so on. Seven hats. Each of these hats means at least millions of dollars in funding," said Yang.
Poverty alleviation money has become "Monk's meat"
With the name of the national poverty-stricken county, Xinhua County is equivalent to planting a "money tree". 14 years, Xinhua County has received financial funds for poverty alleviation and policy-oriented support funds for the national poverty-stricken county hat. The total amount of policy support funds amounted to more than one billion yuan.
According to the current poverty alleviation policy, there are two main types of poverty alleviation funds from the central government for the "national poor counties": one is the "cash for work" funds held by the Development and Reform Commission system, which is mainly used for the repair of roads in the poor areas, water conservancy facilities, drinking water for humans and animals, and the management of small watersheds. The other is the development funds "planned by the Poverty Alleviation Office and appropriated by the financial department", which are released by the financial department after consulting with the poverty alleviation department, focusing on the development of planting, breeding, and scientific and technological poverty alleviation, etc. The funds are also used to support the development of the poverty alleviation program.
Xinhua County has become a "national poverty-stricken county", in addition to the county poverty alleviation office, to work in favor of the Office of the central and provincial financial funds for poverty alleviation, but also access to poverty alleviation subsidized loans. The county's agriculture, forestry, water conservancy, transportation, education, finance departments can be used to get all kinds of funds for poverty alleviation.
According to Yang Guowu, these poverty-alleviation funds come in a wide range of names, from tens of millions of yuan to tens of thousands of yuan.
These financial funds for poverty alleviation are usually grasped, programmed, implemented and accepted by various government departments. However, due to the lack of supervision from poverty-alleviation targets and the public, and the lack of an independent organization to evaluate poverty-alleviation performance, these funds are more likely to be wasted, or even or squeezed or misappropriated.
The Caijing reporter was informed of a large number of cases of inefficient use of poverty-alleviation funds during his interviews in Xinhua County. For example, from 1996 to 1998, Xinhua County received as much as 36 million yuan in poverty-alleviation funds for the purchase of fruit seedlings. These funds in batches and phases to the County Poverty Alleviation Office, Mountain Development Office, Forestry Bureau and other departments, each department on its own, the purchase of a variety of fruit seedlings, most of which did not survive, survived, but also do not hang fruit. 14 years, although there is the central and provincial level to support, Xinhua County so far can not be found in the scale of the economic forests and fruit groves, and even oranges and other southern mountainous areas of the common fruits have to be imported from abroad. Xinhua County claimed the scale of 100,000 mu of medicinal herbs base, in fact, less than 20,000 mu.
Poverty-alleviation skills training is another example. According to the reporter, Xinhua County receives more than 1 million yuan a year for skills training for poor farmers. But a reporter's investigation found that none of the county's five designated training schools for poverty alleviation has an independent legal personality or the qualifications to engage in labor skills training for more than three years.
Reporters interviewed in the county Meishan vocational school to see, the school department rented the county agricultural school on the first floor of the three rooms, respectively, hung "practice room", "restaurant" and "office "The sign. Among them, the practice room is less than 30 square meters, simple cement stove, with ten rusty stoves. It is hard to imagine, two years here actually "training" 400 chefs. But this is such a simple school, the annual poverty alleviation training funds up to 600,000 yuan.
In Xinhua County, Luang detailed town of Baiyun Village, villagers reflected to reporters, in 2007, Luang detailed town government in the name of the village to apply for 40,000 yuan of water reform project funds, but the village did not build any project. In the Tianmen Township Linchang Village, the higher-ups allocated 80,000 yuan of drinking water projects for people and animals, the only "results", is the village secretary brother's home to repair a small water tower.
The reporter also found that some of the subsidized loans for poverty alleviation were not really used for poverty alleviation projects.
Xinhua County, "Wuxi paper mill project" is one of many similar projects. 1995, the county Crouch Creek Township, a farmer applied for the construction of "Wuxi paper mill". Upon the approval of the then county party secretary, he was granted a loan of 12 million yuan. But then the person's whereabouts are unknown, did not build the factory, 12 million yuan do not know what happened.
According to a leader of the Finance Bureau of Xinhua County, only from 1994 to 1998, Xinhua County **** issued more than 50 million yuan of loans for poverty alleviation, the expiration of the recovery of only a few million yuan. Xinhua County Agricultural Bank of China said that because of the alarming non-performance rate of the county's poverty-alleviation loans, the county's agricultural bank rarely issued poverty-alleviation loans after 2000.
In Xinhua County, financial funds for poverty alleviation have also become a rent-seeking tool for those in power. Because the source and use of poverty alleviation funds is not transparent, there are a lot of projects that need to be approved by the leadership of the "note" in order to get the money. Layers of approval, all kinds of poverty alleviation funds are often deducted.
According to a village secretary in Jinfeng Township, Xinhua County, who wished to remain anonymous, one of the main tasks of the village secretary is to "run the project". If you don't know how to "run", you won't be able to get poverty alleviation projects even if you are poor. And the effort to fight for the project funds, to the competent authorities of the rebate is at least 20%, some as high as 50%. This money will also be given to the township commission, the real left in the village of very little.
For a long time, "run the project, fight for funds" is Xinhua County and the township of a routine work, "pre-project funding" is a must pay the cost. According to the county audit department, in Xinhua County, the relatively poor town of Shichongkou, 2007 reported more than one million yuan of invoices for cigarettes, alcohol, food and beverage, which indicates that the "running project" funds amounted to 800,000 yuan.
Jinfeng Township, with a population of only 16,000, had food and beverage invoices of up to 1.3 million yuan in 2001-2003.
In 1996, Chen Maocong, then director of the County Poverty Alleviation Office, took the name of the Office of Poverty Alleviation as a guarantor of a private enterprise, Shi Xin Antimony Factory, borrowed a poverty alleviation subsidized loan of 1 million yuan, with the County Poverty Alleviation Training Center as a collateral. After the loan has not been returned, in May 2003, Xinhua County Court ruled that the County Poverty Alleviation Office is jointly and severally liable for the poverty alleviation training building and poverty alleviation office of 100,000 yuan of claims to the County Agricultural Bank.
What's more, the poverty alleviation funds are also used for "election bribery". According to Loudi City Commission for Discipline Inspection sources, Xinhua County, the former Secretary of Finance Chen Chengnan suspected of misappropriation of poverty alleviation funds for his brother Duan Zhiting "to buy votes".
On February 5, 2003, Chen Chengnan paid 5,000 yuan to each of the three county people's congress deputies from Dongxi Village, Xixi Village and Riluo Village in Shui Che Town, in the hope that they would support Duan Zhiting's campaign for deputy governor. This was the trigger for Chen Chengnan's investigation.
If you are from Xinhua, please reprint and top it, save it for a month! There are a lot of "imperialists" on the internet who are refuting this idea, which is the characteristic and shamelessness of our Xinhua politics! Please all the old folks of Xinhua to top it! Maybe we can't change anything, but we can definitely express our power! Strongly support the state to cancel the "crown" of poor county of Xinhua! We can't get the benefits, and we can't feed a bunch of corrupt officials to show off to our people!