No black mark for officials when poverty a choice

Editor's Note: A short video clip showing a grassroots civil servant in charge of the local poverty alleviation work addressing a group of poverty-stricken villagers in Zhenyuan county of Yunnan province, went viral on the internet, as she admonishes her listeners not to pin all their hopes on government subsidies for improving their lives. China Daily writer Li Yang comments:

If the speaker, as many other grassroots civil servants in her shoes have done, had comforted the poor villagers by reaffirming the government's resolve to lift them out of poverty by the end of next year－when China vows to build a moderately well-off society nationwide－the video clip would not have stirred a heated discussion.

To fulfill the compulsory goal set by the central authority of eliminating abject rural poverty by 2020, civil servants working in some impoverished areas, where the natural and living environments are invariably harsh, have left no stones unturned to help improve local residents' livelihoods.

That more than 100 civil servants have reportedly died for doing poverty alleviation work in recent years, mainly because of natural disasters, traffic accidents and the demands of the job, has laid bare the dangers and pressures related to the work, if not the heavy financial cost of the marked achievement－China has lifted more than 10 million people out of poverty each year since 2012.

Also, their people-first workplace culture does not encourage civil servants to complain about the difficulties they face, which not only stem from the harsh natural conditions and deadline pressure of their superiors, but more directly from the poor villagers they are duty-bound to help, particularly those whose poverty is actually not caused by their inability to pursue a better life, but their laziness and counting on easy money from the government.

Li's passionate words, which were frank, yet cordial, struck a chord with many. Which should spur policymakers to improve the evaluation system for local officials' performance in poverty relief work, as it is not uncommon to see some who just refuse to have their names removed from welfare rolls, and it is unfair to attribute these people's "voluntary poverty" to local civil servants' dereliction of duty, as these impoverished people simply want to take a free ride on the country's poverty alleviation campaign.