The Predicament And Solution Of Local Government Bus Reform In China

The reform of official vehicle using system is a hot topic in China. Chinese localgovernments have promulgated rules and regulations regarding the managementand supervision of official vehicle using system since1994and some localgovernments have already carried out the reforms and measures. But in the past20years, the former three rounds of reforms did not achieve their goal. People areexpecting for the new round of reform. With Holistic Governance Theory, this papercomprehensively analyzes the practices of reforms of official vehicle using system oflocal governments in China, taking Shanghai municipal government as an example.The author not only figures out the achievements, but also points out theshortcomings and makes conclusions and suggestions on the current situations.The achievements of the reforms of Shanghai municipal government include—reducing expenditure, change of the ways of official transportation, integration ofmanagement mechanism of retained official vehicles, release of the correspondingrules and regulations and strengthened supervision of official use of vehicles as well.But from a Holistic Governance Theory perspective, there are still problems in theformer reforms, such as the goal of the reforms which is not to meet the publicdemand, lack of coordination, imperfect supporting system and ineffectivesupervision. In order to change the current situations, we should promote the reformof official vehicle using system in Shanghai with reference to the experiences fromabroad in the following ways—to design and implement the reform plan with thepurpose of meeting public needs, to gradually integrate the government resources,social resources and personal resources of civil servants, to make detailedregulations of the purchase, use and maintenance of official vehicles and itsaccountability, and to strengthen internal and external supervision on theconsumption.