A one-vote veto on animal disease prevention and control is worth applauding

Recently, the Wanyuan city government in Sichuan province respectively signed major animal disease prevention and control target performance management responsibility statements with its 52 townships under its jurisdiction, incorporating major animal disease prevention and control work into the city's comprehensive target performance management, and applying a one-vote veto to the comprehensive target assessment of townships where major animal disease outbreaks occur during the assessment period.

This approach is good! On the surface, the inadequate and substandard quality of some operators themselves is the direct cause of animal disease outbreaks. But on closer analysis, loose management, unsound reward and punishment systems, nonstandard business practices, weak post-incident accountability, and the lack of dynamic animal monitoring mechanisms are the deeper causes of animal disease outbreaks. It is precisely because of various shortcomings that animal diseases keep repeating "yesterday's story."

It is understandable that enterprises pursue profit maximization, but how can we ensure that "a gentleman loves wealth and obtains it in a proper way"? This requires institutional constraints to make the system work. At present, our country does not lack laws and regulations on animal disease prevention and control, yet they are often "watered down" due to a lack of supervision over enforcement personnel. The Wanyuan city government's signing of major animal disease prevention and control target performance management responsibility statements with each township can be called a pioneering move. Whether viewed from the perspective of animal safety or from the perspective of optimizing the animal market environment, this system reflects the local government's governing wisdom and deserves praise and recognition.

"Food is the first necessity of the people." Major animal disease prevention and control, which bears on the safety of livestock and poultry products, allows no slackening whatsoever. Therefore, the author believes that the system should be strict. Animal safety has always been a concern of the public, and ensuring animal safety work is a glorious mission with heavy responsibility. Wanyuan city has actively done a good job in this year's spring major animal disease prevention and control work, making every effort to ensure that animals within its jurisdiction are clean and disease-free and that the quality and safety of livestock products are protected, ensuring the safety of the people's diet and boosting the healthy and rapid development of the livestock industry, undoubtedly giving the animal market a clear sky. When the government keeps the safety of the people's diet in mind, the people will feel gratitude toward society, and this is the ideal social outlook we envision.

The successive outbreaks of animal diseases have sounded alarms and posed challenges for the relevant departments. Faced with the contradictory and anxious mentality of the public, who "want to eat but fear to eat and dare not eat, and feel uneasy if they do not eat yet cannot avoid eating," faced with the producers and operators in society who repeatedly and brazenly produce inferior animals, and faced with the inadequate supervision and inspection and enforcement loopholes of regulatory departments, local leaders should strengthen their sense of responsibility and crisis. Incorporating major animal disease prevention and control target performance management into the performance assessment of local governments as a view of political achievement is a concentrated expression of the scientific outlook on development, breaks the long-standing monopoly of GDP "holding sole power," helps improve local governments' governing philosophy, innovate working methods, transform government functions, and jointly build a service-oriented government. This is a profound manifestation of following the laws of the times, conforming to the will of the people, and valuing and improving people's livelihood.