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Sunday, 8 February 2009
Rural residents feel let down by policy to provide them with electrical appliances
Fifteen business days. That was the longest time Henan farmer Zhang Jun said he was told it would take to receive the government subsidy on the refrigerator he bought. After eight months, he is still waiting.
Rural residents feel let down by policy to provide them with electrical appliances
Woods Lee 7 February 2009
Fifteen business days. That was the longest time Henan farmer Zhang Jun said he was told it would take to receive the government subsidy on the refrigerator he bought. After eight months, he is still waiting.
Mr. Zhang, of Xi county, paid 1,999 yuan (HK$2,260) in June after hearing that the central government would reimburse him 13 per cent of the purchase price, or 260 yuan.
“I have asked the bank and the retailer a hundred times about the delay, and they just keep asking me to wait a few more days, without offering a reasonable explanation,” he said.
“Now I really feel like I have been deceived and bullied. I really don’t understand why it is so difficult to implement a government policy meant to benefit farmers.”
The government policy is called jia dian xia xiang, or literally, “sending household appliances to the vast countryside”. Despite the slightly comical name, the programme’s three goals are very serious: to improve farmers’ living conditions, to reduce manufacturers’ household appliance inventories and to stimulate domestic consumption.
Beijing hoped to achieve those goals by giving 13 per cent rebates to farmers who bought a colour television, a refrigerator, a mobile phone or a washing machine. The scheme was launched in three provinces, including Henan, in December 2007, and went nationwide at the beginning of this month. It was also expanded to cover purchases of motorcycles, air conditioners, gas and electric water heaters and personal computers.
Under the programme, suppliers offered tenders for the right to participate in the scheme, and farmers had to buy their appliances from designated retail outlets to qualify for the rebate. But policy loopholes, bureaucratic inertia and lax oversight are making it very hard for the scheme’s intended recipients to reap the benefits and farmers, retailers and officials are blaming one another for the programme’s failings.
One of the farmers’ complaints is that lower-level governments have little interest in implementing the scheme. Ding Shuangjian, from Wawu village in Henan’s Lushan county, said he saw only apathy when he tried to claim a rebate for a refrigerator.
“When I went to the village government to apply for the subsidy for the refrigerator I bought, they told me they knew nothing about the so-called subsidy policy. They said they hadn’t received any formal notice about it from higher authorities,” Mr. Ding said.
An even bigger complaint is the late payment of the subsidies.
Zhao Guiying, a farmer from Qiquan town under Chongzhou in Sichuan, bought a refrigerator in November, and she has not received any money, either.
“Every time I went to the town finance office to collect the subsidy, they coldly told me that they had no money,” said her husband, who declined to give his name. “They said nothing else and made me feel as if I was begging for charity from them.
“The central government promised there would be a subsidy for us, so how come the [local] administration does not have the money?”
The answer might be that there is simply no money to hand out. Higher-than-expected numbers of subsidy applications drained the fund in November and December, according to one Chongzhou commerce official, as well as deception by some retailers. The Chongzhou government felt forced to pay the subsidies out of its own budget.
“The retailers collected many farmers’ identification cards and used them to apply for the subsidies, but they did not sell as many electronic products as they claimed,” the official said.
But most provincial government officials insist they have more than enough money to meet the scheme’s needs and brush aside any concerns about lower-level misappropriation or embezzlement. They say the reported payment delays are due, in most cases, to the farmers giving incorrect or incomplete information, making it hard or even impossible for local authorities to trace the buyers and issue the rebate promptly.
“All the subsidies for farmers’ household appliance purchases in 2008 were allotted to each county government by September last year, and I’m sure that the fund was not improperly used, because the provincial government has been tracking the fund very closely,” a Henan commerce official said.
Retailers are also dissatisfied with the programme’s implementation, saying that the listed prices for the products in the programme are too low to leave any room for profit. Lu Bin, a retailer in Leigu town of Beichuan county, Sichuan, said he was losing money on many transactions.
“The wholesale price of one type of refrigerator in my store is 1,950 yuan, and I sell it for 1,999 yuan, but after I pay the delivery fee ... I actually lose 42.90 yuan on each refrigerator,” Mr. Lu said.
Yet even though there are listed prices for the products, officials and farmers do not always know what these prices are, and they claim that some retailers are overcharging.
Xi county commerce official Fang Heng, the only person in his office charged with administering the subsidies, said he could tell just by looking at the receipts that the buyers had been fleeced, but he claimed he knew of no better way to correct it.
“I usually advised them to report the cases either to the market administration departments or to the superior governments,” Mr. Feng said, “because we are too short-staffed to spare any people to take care of farmers’ complaints.”
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Rural residents feel let down by policy to provide them with electrical appliances
Woods Lee
7 February 2009
Fifteen business days. That was the longest time Henan farmer Zhang Jun said he was told it would take to receive the government subsidy on the refrigerator he bought. After eight months, he is still waiting.
Mr. Zhang, of Xi county, paid 1,999 yuan (HK$2,260) in June after hearing that the central government would reimburse him 13 per cent of the purchase price, or 260 yuan.
“I have asked the bank and the retailer a hundred times about the delay, and they just keep asking me to wait a few more days, without offering a reasonable explanation,” he said.
“Now I really feel like I have been deceived and bullied. I really don’t understand why it is so difficult to implement a government policy meant to benefit farmers.”
The government policy is called jia dian xia xiang, or literally, “sending household appliances to the vast countryside”. Despite the slightly comical name, the programme’s three goals are very serious: to improve farmers’ living conditions, to reduce manufacturers’ household appliance inventories and to stimulate domestic consumption.
Beijing hoped to achieve those goals by giving 13 per cent rebates to farmers who bought a colour television, a refrigerator, a mobile phone or a washing machine. The scheme was launched in three provinces, including Henan, in December 2007, and went nationwide at the beginning of this month. It was also expanded to cover purchases of motorcycles, air conditioners, gas and electric water heaters and personal computers.
Under the programme, suppliers offered tenders for the right to participate in the scheme, and farmers had to buy their appliances from designated retail outlets to qualify for the rebate. But policy loopholes, bureaucratic inertia and lax oversight are making it very hard for the scheme’s intended recipients to reap the benefits and farmers, retailers and officials are blaming one another for the programme’s failings.
One of the farmers’ complaints is that lower-level governments have little interest in implementing the scheme. Ding Shuangjian, from Wawu village in Henan’s Lushan county, said he saw only apathy when he tried to claim a rebate for a refrigerator.
“When I went to the village government to apply for the subsidy for the refrigerator I bought, they told me they knew nothing about the so-called subsidy policy. They said they hadn’t received any formal notice about it from higher authorities,” Mr. Ding said.
An even bigger complaint is the late payment of the subsidies.
Zhao Guiying, a farmer from Qiquan town under Chongzhou in Sichuan, bought a refrigerator in November, and she has not received any money, either.
“Every time I went to the town finance office to collect the subsidy, they coldly told me that they had no money,” said her husband, who declined to give his name. “They said nothing else and made me feel as if I was begging for charity from them.
“The central government promised there would be a subsidy for us, so how come the [local] administration does not have the money?”
The answer might be that there is simply no money to hand out. Higher-than-expected numbers of subsidy applications drained the fund in November and December, according to one Chongzhou commerce official, as well as deception by some retailers. The Chongzhou government felt forced to pay the subsidies out of its own budget.
“The retailers collected many farmers’ identification cards and used them to apply for the subsidies, but they did not sell as many electronic products as they claimed,” the official said.
But most provincial government officials insist they have more than enough money to meet the scheme’s needs and brush aside any concerns about lower-level misappropriation or embezzlement. They say the reported payment delays are due, in most cases, to the farmers giving incorrect or incomplete information, making it hard or even impossible for local authorities to trace the buyers and issue the rebate promptly.
“All the subsidies for farmers’ household appliance purchases in 2008 were allotted to each county government by September last year, and I’m sure that the fund was not improperly used, because the provincial government has been tracking the fund very closely,” a Henan commerce official said.
Retailers are also dissatisfied with the programme’s implementation, saying that the listed prices for the products in the programme are too low to leave any room for profit. Lu Bin, a retailer in Leigu town of Beichuan county, Sichuan, said he was losing money on many transactions.
“The wholesale price of one type of refrigerator in my store is 1,950 yuan, and I sell it for 1,999 yuan, but after I pay the delivery fee ... I actually lose 42.90 yuan on each refrigerator,” Mr. Lu said.
Yet even though there are listed prices for the products, officials and farmers do not always know what these prices are, and they claim that some retailers are overcharging.
Xi county commerce official Fang Heng, the only person in his office charged with administering the subsidies, said he could tell just by looking at the receipts that the buyers had been fleeced, but he claimed he knew of no better way to correct it.
“I usually advised them to report the cases either to the market administration departments or to the superior governments,” Mr. Feng said, “because we are too short-staffed to spare any people to take care of farmers’ complaints.”
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