Protecting farmers' interests requires preventive measures in advance
“From 2013 to May of this year, procuratorial organs at all levels handled a total of 28,894 people involved in duty-related crimes in agriculture-related and poverty-alleviation fields, accounting for 22% of the total number of duty-related crimes filed and handled by procuratorial organs during the same period.” Chen Zhengyun, deputy director of the Duty-Related Crime Prevention Department of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, reported at a press conference held today. The Supreme People's Procuratorate also announced that from July this year to July 2017, procuratorial organs nationwide will carry out a two-year effort to concentrate on punishing and preventing duty-related crimes in the field of agriculture-benefiting and poverty-alleviation work. (Xinhua Net, July 22)
Director Chen summarized: duty-related crimes in agriculture-related and poverty-alleviation fields are still hovering at a high level, in a situation prone to frequent occurrence, and present four new characteristics. The first characteristic is the obvious phenomenon of “low-ranking officials involved in corruption”; the second characteristic is “serious clustered cases and linked cases”; the third characteristic is “prominent embezzlement and misappropriation”; and the fourth characteristic is “concentration in the stages where cases occur.”
Agriculture-related and poverty-alleviation funds affect the vital interests of more than 900 million Chinese farmers and affect the people's production, life and development. It can be said that these funds are the “fuel cards” for farmers striving for a moderately prosperous life. However, because these “low-ranking officials” exploit, squeeze out and misappropriate them, what is truly used for farmers, agriculture and rural areas has become very little. How can duty-related crimes in the field of agriculture-related and poverty-alleviation funds be reduced and eliminated, and how can these “fuel cards” truly be put into effect and benefit farmers? The author believes that in addition to increasing punishment, prevention is more important.
Prevention is the fundamental solution. To do prevention work well, first, ideological and political education must be strengthened and the mechanism of education promoting integrity must be improved, so that the broad ranks of Party members and officials build a solid dam in their thinking against duty-related crimes; second, supervision must be strengthened and the mechanism of supervision safeguarding integrity for Party members and officials must be continuously improved; finally, laws and regulations must be established, improved and standardized, so that there are laws to abide by and laws that can be implemented, and it is necessary to insist that violations of law are prosecuted and law enforcement is strict, using laws and regulations to constrain the behavior of Party members and officials and increase the cost of violating the law and engaging in corruption.