Slack supervision leads to problems in outsourcing of public services

Left: Vessels from Shanghai that tried to dump garbage on the banks of Taihu Lake were detained by police. Right: More than 20,000 metric tons of garbage had been scattered along the lakeshore as of Monday. Photos By Zhou Ti / For China Daily

Local police in Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu province, detained the crew of a boat when they tried to dump about 4,000 tons of garbage from Shanghai municipality. Beijing News comments:

Why must the ship carry the garbage to Suzhou, which is more than 100 kilometers away? Reports show that the Shanghai sanitation authorities outsourced their job and did not supervise the contracted companies. In fact, all they asked the agencies to do is to get rid of the garbage.

Without supervision, the contracting agencies naturally opted to dispose of the garbage instead of processing it because that maximizes their profit. Worse, reports show that the contracted company did not do the job itself; it outsourced the job to smaller companies that operate without a license, which is illegal.

It seems the outsourcing of public services has failed in the Shanghai garbage case. The outsourcing of services was initially meant to introduce market forces into the public service sector, as a way to both save costs for taxpayers and raise efficiency.

It is the lack of legal supervision that has caused the problem. While outsourcing public services, the government department concerned is responsible for supervising the whole process to make sure those contracted to provide the services do not break the law. The Shanghai sanitation authorities have failed to do this.

The practice of the contracted company further subcontracting the job should be ended, as the parties at the bottom end of the contract chain take shortcuts to gain some profit. It has long been a problem that outsourced agencies outsource their contracts again, which deserves attention from both the public and the authorities.

One year ago, Jiangsu-based Xinhua Daily reported that the Shanghai authorities had been investigating the problem of garbage being disposed in Jiangsu; yet the same problem has arisen again. It is time to strengthen supervision and hold those breaking the law responsible for their malpractices.