Ministry reform must include eliminating overlap

That ministry-level departmental reform became a hot topic before the annual national "two sessions" is predictable. More important than reducing the number of ministries is coordinating the works of different ministries and improving the efficiency of the government, says an editorial in the 21st Century Business Herald. Excerpts:

Personnel change is only one aspect of the ministry shuffle. The core issue of reform is to match the new ministries' powers with their responsibilities and eliminate the overlapping powers among different departments to avoid conflicts of interest.

Another objective of the reform is to build a cooperative mechanism among different ministries. Take China's tobacco control as an example. Nine ministries of industries, finance, health and even foreign affairs are involved in the national project. But the accumulation of power does not mean an increase in efficiency. The percentage of the population that smokes has not changed in recent years, and China has failed to fulfill its responsibility as a signatory country of WTO's International Framework Convention of Tobacco Control.

The nine ministries have their explicit job in the overall project. But it seems to the public that only the Ministry of Health is trying its best to persuade smokers to quit smoking.

Another noteworthy need is to build effective supervision system for the ministries, especially the ones that are large and have administration powers over many fields. After the Ministry of Railways integrates into the Ministry of Transport, the new Ministry of Transport will become much bigger than before.

How to coordinate different departments, how to deal with the huge debts of the former MOR, and how to balance relations between the government and the market are all urgent tasks for the approaching reform.