1st LD-Writethru: China's top legislature to step up oversight work through special inquiries

1st LD-Writethru: China's top legislature to step up oversightwork through special inquiries

BEIJING, March 10 (Xinhua) - China's top legislator Wu Bangguopledged Thursday the National People's Congress(NPC), the toplegislature, would step up its oversight work through specialinquiries into issues related to people's well-being this year.

"We would continue to carry out special inquiries in accordancewith the law on low-income housing, government budgets, educationreform, and strengthening primary-level courts and procuratorates,"Wu told nearly 3,000 national legislators in his report delivered atthe ongoing annual session of the NPC.

Inquiries are legal means by which the NPC oversees the StateCouncil, or cabinet, the Supreme People's Court and the SupremePeople's Procuratorate.

The oversight work of the NPC Standing Committee this year willalso focus on:

-- examine and approve the 2010 final accounts of the centralgovernment;

-- examine the implementation of a proactive fiscal policy and aprudent monetary policy as well as the efforts to stabilize pricesand curb the excessively rapid rise of housing prices in somecities;

-- conduct research on how to guard against local government debtrisks and how to set up a sound mechanism for ensuring basic fundingfor county-level governments;

-- press ahead with implementation of the central government' smacro-control policies as well as measures for reforming key sectorsin order to promote steady and rapid economic development;

-- listen to and deliberate the State Council's reports on itswork concerning accelerating the transformation of the pattern ofeconomic development, environmental protection, reform of the tenureof collective forests and developing the tourism industry;

-- investigate compliance with the Law on Rural Land Contracts;

-- carry out investigations and studies on promoting economic andsocial development in ethnic minority areas;

-- listen to and deliberate the State Council's reports onbuilding low-income housing, implementing the National Medium- andLong-Term Plan for Education Reform and Development, and fireprevention;

-- investigate compliance with the Law on Food Safety, the LaborContract Law, the Law Guaranteeing the Rights and Interests ofSenior Citizens and other laws;

-- urge relevant parties to effectively solve problems of theutmost concern to ordinary people such as adequate housing,schooling for children, employment, and the protection of workers'rights and interests;

-- deliberate reports of the Supreme People's Court and theSupreme People's Procuratorate on strengthening primary-level workin order to solve prominent problems restricting improvement ofjudicial competence at the primary level, strengthen theirmanagement and competence, and promote judicial justice;

-- listen to and deliberate the State Council' s report on theimplementation of the fifth five-year plan for spreading generalknowledge of the law among the people, adopt a resolution forimplementing the sixth five-year plan for this purpose;

In his report, Wu also stressed the need to tackle the issue ofincome distribution this year, as "it is a problem of common concernto the people and NPC deputies."

The top legislator promised to intensify investigations andstudies on raising the proportion of national income that goes toindividuals and raising the proportion of workers' wages in theprimary distribution, in an effort to appropriately adjust incomedistribution.

He said the NPC Standing Committee would also pay more attentionto investigations and studies on standardizing income distribution,strengthening the role of taxation in adjusting income, andreversing the widening income disparity.

Last year, the NPC focused its inquiries on the centralgovernment's final accounts, national food security, and deepeningthe reform of the pharmaceutical and healthcare systems,

These inquiries, which were reported or broadcast live ontelevision and the Internet, attracted widespread attention and wona positive response from the general public.

"Inquiries on special topics have helped the State Council andits departments to improve their work, and also enriched the way theNPC does its oversight work," Wu said.