Some 16,000 enterprises across the country have been punished over
the last nine months for severely polluting the environment,
government sources said Wednesday.
Some local officials and government departments were disciplined
after being found guilty of dereliction of duty for failing to
enforce the policy of shutting down severely polluting enterprises,
sources with the State Environmental Protection Administration
disclosed on Wednesday in Beijing.
According to administration officials, most of the enterprises were
concentrated in central and western parts of China, where the
relatively underdeveloped economy has led some local governments to
turn a blind eye to polluting industries.
Most of the enterprises involved manufacture paper or produce
minerals.
During inspections organized by central and local environmental
protection authorities in previous years, many of the enterprises
had been ordered to shut down but they secretly resumed production
when the inspectors left.
The administration stressed that such conduct would be severely
punished, given the firms' violations of previous instructions to
shut down.
China began to impose strict environmental regulations over
factories two decades ago and has achieved apparent progress in
most former heavily polluted regions.
But administration officials admitted that some heavily polluting
factories in central and western regions showed signs of making a
return this year.
Local protectionism is the major factor leading to the comeback of
these polluting enterprises, the environmental body said.
Lacking law-enforcing powers, the administration can only increase
its supervision and encourage local governments to stop
violations.
Tian Weiyong, a division chief at the administration in charge of
supervising environmental pollution cases, said: "Some local
governments refused to cooperate in punishing those factories,
which made our work very difficult."
Tian said the environmental administration is actively working on a
new environmental-protection mechanism, under which leading
officials of province, municipalities and autonomous regions will
be responsible for fighting pollution.
(China
Daily September 26, 2002)