Restructuring of govt depts involves more than adding, subtracting powers

China plans to replace its Ministry of Environmental Protection with a new Ministry of Ecological Environment, according to a government restructuring plan approved by the top legislature on Saturday. Southern Metropolis Daily comments:

The new ministry will consolidate the administrative powers related to ecological and environmental protection that are currently dispersed among a handful of ministerial-level departments.

For example, at least four ministries, those of land resources, water resources, environmental protection, and agriculture, have overlapping responsibilities for water pollution treatment and prevention. It has been common for them to pass the buck from one to another when water pollution is exposed by the media or local residents.

To establish such a new ministry is thus a necessary move to match power with responsibilities, and one supported by the public.

But to concentrate the power scattered among different ministries into one will not be simply an easy process of addition and subtraction. It is predictable there will be resistance from those with vested interests in the power they hold at present.

According to the government revamp plan, almost all ministries that are supposed to concede responsibilities to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which is the foundation for the new ministry, are redistributing power to other new ministries.

Although the need for a powerful environment and ecology administrative authority is urgent, how soon the planned ministry will be founded, since the restructuring plan has been approved, depends largely on the rate at which the plan is realized as it will probably be more complicated than expected given its scale.

Also, it will take time to amend the relevant laws and rules to entitle the proposed new ministries with corresponding law enforcement rights and stipulate their legally bound duties.

The restructuring is to let power better fulfill its duties, so a supervisory mechanism must also be put in place to curb and deal with any possible power abuses.