GOVERNMENT agencies resulting from the city’s biggest administrative reform in history were officially inaugurated yesterday.
The 31 agencies include seven policymaking commissions and 18 policy execution bureaus.
In the largest government reshuffle, which started a month ago, the city government streamlined its institutions by more than 30 percent from 46 to 31.
It aims for greater, cleaner and service-oriented government efficiency. It would play a positive role in checking and supervising each branch, Executive Vice Mayor Li Feng said at a news conference after plaques were unveiled at a ceremony at the Citizens’ Center.
Under the reform, the government abolished 151 internal organizations and associations including five bureaus and 146 departments and sections of organizations, which had overlapping or similar functions.
Around 394 officials had lost their posts, Li said.
The reform, which separates the functions of the Shenzhen government into three areas such as decision making, execution and supervision, was a top priority in the government’s schedule to implement an overall comprehensive reform program which was approved by the State Council in May.
“Shenzhen had undergone several rounds of administrative reforms, but it was still lagging behind the city’s economic and social development. The government still buried itself in approvals of complicated procedures and interfered with micro economic operations of enterprises,” said Li.
In this reform, the governments canceled, adjusted or transferred 284 administrative approval items and gave them to industry associations and enterprises.
After the reshuffle, the government will be more service-oriented and focus on improving the livelihood of the general public and create a better environment for education, medicare, employment, environmental protection and public security.
The idea for the reform was first tabled in 2003, when authorities said during the Guangdong Provincial People’s Congress they wanted Shenzhen to pilot the reform.
The plan was not implemented at that time as it was too difficult to separate the departments and involved too many personnel changes, Ma Jingren, a professor at Shenzhen University, said yesterday.
Han Ximin