Chapter 699

Liu Rui, in front of a crowd, was stuffed into a car by stern-faced Discipline Inspection Committee cadres.

This shocking scene unfolded in the Municipal Party Committee compound; whether leaders or cadres, everyone stared at each other, dumbfounded. No one expected that the usually imposing, invincible Deputy Secretary Liu would end up in such a predicament—truly, things are unpredictable!

At the same time, it also sounded the alarm for everyone—governance of the business environment in the province is no joke!

Within just one week, focusing on four types of problems—policy implementation not in place, government services not acting, administrative law enforcement not standardized, and unclear distinction between close and clean government-business relations—the provincial, municipal, and county-level Discipline Inspection Committees, through case-driven reform, purified the political ecosystem and optimized the business environment, investigating and handling 3568 issues affecting the business environment, filing 685 cases, and imposing party-discipline and administrative sanctions on 2958 individuals, continually expanding the comprehensive effect of investigating one case to warn a broad area and govern a region.

The Provincial Party Committee, provincial government, and provincial Discipline Inspection Committee built the Clear Wind Grassland Supervision platform, integrating multiple petition and reporting platforms into a single code, encouraging businesses and the public to "snap on the go"; under the "microscope" of smart supervision, the "mooching off businesses" problem hidden like an invisibility cloak was fully exposed.

In just one week, 1950 derelict and negligent public officials were handled, and a total of 2598 disciplinary inspection recommendations and supervisory recommendations were issued.

In Zhelimu City, truck driver Lao Sun encountered a "roadblock tiger"—a group of field personnel stopped his vehicle, telling him that to pass he must find the Section Chief Yu of the Transportation Management Office. To avoid delaying business, he had to comply with Chief Yu's demand, paying 30,000 yuan per month for each of ten trucks as a "road protection fee".

Lao Sun, with a tentative attitude, secretly recorded the scene and uploaded it to the Clear Wind Grassland Supervision platform. To his surprise, the provincial and municipal Discipline Inspection Committees responded quickly, and within three days they uncovered that Yu, using his position as head of the Transportation Management Office, had extorted over 5,000,000 yuan in "road protection fees" in violation of discipline and law. Yu was given double expulsion and handed over to the judicial authorities.

……

The Provincial Party Committee and provincial government, aiming to optimize the business environment by breaking through obstacles, clearing blockages, correcting conduct, and eradicating corruption, demonstrated the determination and will to see the business environment supervision action's blueprint through to the end and persistently see it through, allowing the grassland people to quickly feel real changes—behaviors such as difficulty gaining entry, unpleasant attitudes, difficult matters, harsh words, cold and stiff pushback, shirking, and extortion seemed to disappear overnight from the grassland, because the wind of scrutiny is truly tight; at this point, committing violations against the wind is pure foolishness.

On June 22, a profoundly significant provincial conference on optimizing the business environment was grandly convened in the provincial government auditorium, with subvenues set up in all cities and counties, and all relevant departments at every level participating.

The conference also invited over a hundred enterprises and adopted full-process video livestreaming, aiming to let more people understand the conference spirit and convey the grassland's resolve to govern the business environment.

After the meeting began, a publicly shown short film on undercover investigation of the business environment exposed the province's prominent problems and shortcomings in the business environment, with a strong, biting tone, causing all attendees to blush and sweat, fully realizing how poor the grassland's business environment is.

In the video, those implicated included unit heads, committee members, business supervisors, and front-desk staff; yet they all, due to improper exercise of power—either abusing authority for personal gain, engaging in government-business collusion to transfer benefits, or suffering from low efficiency and poor work style—damaged normal market order within their authority, and in some cases even adversely affected the province's business environment to a certain extent.

The video urged that all provincial-level cadres and public officials must stay vigilant, be politically clear-minded, clearly recognize that building the business environment is a major matter affecting the overall development of the region, both observing bottom lines and maintaining proper bounds, while also taking proactive initiative and providing forward-looking service.

All-level discipline inspection and supervision organs must know their responsibilities, shoulder them, and fulfill them, continually increasing the intensity of disciplinary supervision, investigation, and handling; regularly naming and exposing typical cases; always maintaining a high-pressure stance against punishment of damages to the business environment, striving to bring about an early turning point in the province's business environment construction.

After the undercover short film was shown, officials in charge from the Provincial Development and Reform Commission, the Provincial Commerce Department, the Provincial Administrative Approval Service Management Bureau, and the Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development took the stage to speak, self-criticizing and self-pressuring, seeking gaps and asking causes, and publicly stating next-step goals and tasks, pledging to treat optimizing the business environment as this year's foundational, comprehensive major work, to be grasped tightly, implemented solidly, and done well.

Discipline Inspection Committee Secretary Du Wenlong conveyed the Discipline Inspection Committee's opinion on "Exerting Supervisory Functions to Optimize the Business Environment," proposing 15 concrete measures from eight aspects to earnestly build a close-yet-regulated, clean-and-effective government-business relationship, and to foster a clean and upright political ecosystem and a favorable development environment.

Governor Luo Shiyu explained the "Several Measures for Further Optimizing the Business Environment," from which the concrete next steps for the grassland province can be seen.

Following the principle of "no prohibition means entry," fully implement the "provincial single list" management model. Strictly prohibit all regions and departments from independently issuing negative lists with market access nature.

Further clean up enterprise-related charges, establish a directory; any enterprise-related charge lacking legal or regulatory basis shall be abolished and not collected. Promptly handle reports of illegal acts such as arbitrary fines, fees, and apportionments, and resolutely pursue responsibility.

Implement the system whereby heads of administrative organs appear in court to respond to lawsuits, strengthen intellectual property protection, strengthen criminal judicial protection, smooth the channels for filing and resolving enterprise-related cases by public security, procuratorial, and judicial organs, and prioritize acceptance, review, trial, and execution of major enterprise-related cases.

Strengthen supervision of criminal case filing and investigation activities involving enterprises and entrepreneurs; strengthen supervision of the execution of property-related criminal penalties involving enterprises; severely crack down on false and malicious lawsuits infringing on enterprise property rights; focus supervision on cases of illegal execution, failure to perform execution duties, and cases where government and state-owned enterprises owe payments to private enterprises……

Ten aspects, forty-six items in total, demonstrate the strength and determination of the grassland in optimizing the business environment.

Finally, Deputy Secretary Lu Fan delivered a speech.

Lu Fan surveyed the gathering and spoke righteously: "Leading cadres colluding with business and staff engaging in extortion have become a pain in the grassland's development and a thorn in the hearts of the common people!"

Just now Governor Luo Shiyu explained the "Several Measures for Optimizing the Grassland's Business Environment"; I'll summarize: they are ten major actions:

"'Reduce business startup time by half' enhancement action; 'Cut project approval time in half' enhancement action; One-stop online government services enhancement action; Mobile phone handling enhancement action; Enterprises and the public strive to complete affairs through a single door enhancement action; At most one trip enhancement action; Eliminate all certifications lacking legal or regulatory basis enhancement action;"

The "Five Equalities" action, including equal treatment of all market entities, equal enjoyment of government support, equal participation in government investment project construction, equal participation in government procurement and project bidding, and equal protection of enterprises' legitimate rights and interests.

The "Five Optimizations" action, optimizing enterprise water access, electricity access, gas access, tax services, and real estate registration.

In short, it means zero threshold outside the negative list, zero fees outside the fee list, zero distance in enterprise services, and Zero Tolerance for infringing acts.

This is a solemn pledge from the Grassland Provincial Party Committee and provincial government to nationwide enterprises and the province's people; all levels and departments must, from the political and overall development perspective, recognize and grasp the extreme importance and urgent reality of optimizing our province's business environment, purify the political ecosystem, deepen special rectification, and fundamentally resolve prominent business environment issues.

We must work hard to break ideological ice, guiding cadres to strengthen market awareness, service awareness, rule-of-law awareness, and integrity awareness, consciously conducting work according to market economic rules, solving problems more from the needs of enterprises and the public, adhering to rule-of-law thinking and methods to drive development, and fostering a good custom of keeping promises and honest fulfillment of contracts.

We must work hard to punish entrenched corruption, thoroughly investigating the corruption behind business environment problems, listing special topics and conducting classified treatment in concentrated areas such as decision-making, law enforcement, judicial affairs, and engineering projects, using a heavy hand in anti-corruption to strike a turning point in optimizing the business environment.

We must lawfully and fairly strengthen supervision, effectively resolve and prevent issues such as multiple enforcement, duplicate enforcement, and one-size-fits-all enforcement, striving to foster a fair-competition market environment.

We must spare no effort to reduce costs, strictly implement the state's larger-scale tax and fee reduction policies, focus on solving financing difficulties and high costs, accelerate making up shortcomings in basic infrastructure and supporting services, and let enterprises gain tangible benefits.

Optimizing the business environment is never finished, only underway; there is no best, only better! The direction is clear; we grasslanders must know shame and then be brave, give our all to win this turnaround battle—only by genuine effort and daring to face difficulties can the business environment quickly improve and continually get better; there is no alternative!

Today's meeting is of great significance and far-reaching impact, attracting countless eyes. Not only are provincial cadres and the public highly attentive and eagerly awaiting, but enterprises nationwide and netizens outside the province are also closely watching.

A mighty, far-reaching transformation has unfolded across the vast grasslands, like a surging, mighty wave rolling forward, unstoppable; the grassland province's campaign to fortify the optimization of the business environment has officially begun!

After the meeting, the Provincial Discipline Inspection Committee transferred 15592 business environment-related complaint leads to the municipal and county-level Discipline Inspection Committees, set a deadline for handling, and strengthened follow-up supervision. Discipline Inspection Committee Secretary Du Wenlong issued a strict order: anyone who shows evasion, shirking, perfunctory excuses, laziness, delay, cover‑tolerance, or other inaction or sluggishness on these matters will not be spared; the Committee will view it as dereliction or negligence and pursue the principal responsible party to the end.