Top Legislature to Step up Oversight Work Through Special Inquiries

China's top legislator Wu Bangguo pledged Thursday the National People's Congress(NPC), the top legislature, would step up its oversight work through special inquiries into issues related to people's well-being this year.

"We would continue to carry out special inquiries in accordance with the law on low-income housing, government budgets, education reform, and

strengthening primary-level courts and procuratorates," Wu told nearly 3,000 national legislators in his report delivered at the ongoing annual session of the NPC.

Inquiries are legal means by which the NPC oversees the State Council, or cabinet, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

The oversight work of the NPC Standing Committee this year will also focus on:

-- examine and approve the 2010 final accounts of the central government;

-- examine the implementation of a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy as well as the efforts to stabilize prices and curb the excessively rapid rise of housing prices in some cities;

-- conduct research on how to guard against local government debt risks and how to set up a sound mechanism for ensuring basic funding for county-level governments;

-- press ahead with implementation of the central government' s macro-control policies as well as measures for reforming key sectors in order to promote steady and rapid economic development;

-- listen to and deliberate the State Council's reports on its work concerning accelerating the transformation of the pattern of economic development, environmental protection, reform of the tenure of collective forests and developing the tourism industry;

-- investigate compliance with the Law on Rural Land Contracts;

-- carry out investigations and studies on promoting economic and social development in ethnic minority areas;

-- listen to and deliberate the State Council's reports on building low-income housing, implementing the National Medium- and Long-Term Plan for Education Reform and Development, and fire prevention;

-- investigate compliance with the Law on Food Safety, the Labor Contract Law, the Law Guaranteeing the Rights and Interests of Senior Citizens and other laws;

-- urge relevant parties to effectively solve problems of the utmost concern to ordinary people such as adequate housing, schooling for children, employment, and the protection of workers' rights and interests;

-- deliberate reports of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on strengthening primary-level work in order to solve prominent problems restricting improvement of judicial competence at the primary level, strengthen their management and competence, and promote judicial justice;

In his report, Wu also stressed the need to tackle the issue of income distribution this year, as "it is a problem of common concern to the people and NPC deputies."

The top legislator promised to intensify investigations and studies on raising the proportion of national income that goes to individuals and raising the proportion of workers' wages in the primary distribution, in an effort to appropriately adjust income distribution.

He said the NPC Standing Committee would also pay more attention to investigations and studies on standardizing income distribution, strengthening the role of taxation in adjusting income, and reversing the widening income disparity.

Last year, the NPC focused its inquiries on the central government's final accounts, national food security, and deepening the reform of the pharmaceutical and healthcare systems,

These inquiries, which were reported or broadcast live on television and the Internet, attracted widespread attention and won a positive response from the general public.

"Inquiries on special topics have helped the State Council and its departments to improve their work, and also enriched the way the NPC does its oversight work," Wu said.

-- listen to and deliberate the State Council' s report on the implementation of the fifth five-year plan for spreading general knowledge of the law among the people, adopt a resolution for implementing the sixth five-year plan for this purpose;