THE town will build new trash depots, so we won't have to trek miles to dispose of our garbage!" Mo Hailiang is a happy man. Mo, from Shangmo Village, is also a deputy to the People's Congress of Xinhe Town, Wenling City in Zhejiang Province. "We have a say in how and on whom to use the government allocation." In his town's democratic roundtable budget review in February, Mo proposed an additional RMB 300,000 to build trash depots and update the dustbins. His amendment was passed with 63 votes in favor and 26 against.

    Local budget roundtables are now common in Wenling, a city in the eastern coastal area with a well-developed private business sector.

    In 1999 Wenling initiated a tryout of "democratic roundtables," a system "with a high degree of popular participation for open policymaking in public affairs." In 2005 Xinhe Town, which comes under Wenling, was the first to implement "budget participation," whereby the "democratic roundtable" proceedings would form part of its people's congress agenda, reviewing and supervising the local budget. By the start of 2010 budget participation was in operation in 11 towns and five sub-district offices under Wenling's jurisdiction as well as in 15 municipal government departments.

An online roundtable between deputies to the municipal people's congress of Wenling and citizens logged in, on December 30, 2009. Cnsphoto

A Roundtable in Action

    On February 13 this year Xinhe Town held its Sixth Plenum of the 15th People's Congress. Of the one-and-a-half day meeting, one day was taken up by the democratic roundtable review of the 2011 budget. Deputies divided into six teams, each focusing on a specific issue: social undertakings, urban construction, economy, general management, environment and women's affairs.

    First to his feet was Cai Gendi of the general management team, a deputy from Dunantou Village. Cai was holding a much annotated copy of Detailed Explanation on 2011 Financial Budget of Xinhe Town. "The draft budget lists expenditure on public security as RMB 4.5 million, including RMB 200,000 on the Skynet Project to install surveillance cameras at junctions. Now the security situation in our town is not looking good, particularly as regards the incidence of nighttime robberies. I hope the government will increase funds earmarked to public security, and up spending on the Skynet Project to RMB 300,000. By contrast, the governmental overhead itemizes RMB 300,000 for purchasing cars, which in my view the township government already has enough of. I propose expenditure on this item be cut."

    All the deputies had received the draft budget detailing Xinhe's revenue and expenditure in 2011. Its estimated revenue totaled RMB 170.40 million from three sources – budget subsidy, land transfer fees and non-budgeted income. Its planned spending of RMB 155.3 million was grouped under 14 major headings such as basic public administration and services, public security, education, and social welfare and employment. Six full pages were needed to list every detail, even items as small as RMB 50,000. "Previously, the budget report had only two categories and it was unclear where the money was to be used," said Cai.