No matter from which point of view, the bottom line of the quality of popular projects such as shed renovation and resettlement must be maintained.
Mingshui County, Suihua City, Heilongjiang Province, is a shantytown area surrounded by barbed wire. Photo: Xinhua News Agency.
Text |Yang Mo.
In the second year of relocation, there were cracks in the wall", "Some people's floor slabs are sinking seriously, some of the ground is uneven, the height difference is more than 5 centimeters, and some can even feel obvious vibrations when they stomp their feet in the room"...According to Xinhua News Agency, only nine years after the completion of a shantytown reform community in Mingshui County, Suihua City, Heilongjiang Province, all three buildings were identified as D-level dangerous buildings, and more than 300 residents were forced to rent houses or join relatives and friends for four consecutive years.
The shantytown community, which has been built for only 9 years, has become a dilapidated building to be rebuilt, and such a "premature" project to benefit the people makes many people feel unacceptable. The so-called "there must be a demon when something goes wrong", sure enough, in August 2021, after investigation, the public security department determined that the actual construction contractor and relevant supervisors of the project were suspected of the crime of major liability accidents of the project; At the same time, the investigation found that the then director of the Mingshui County Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau, the head of the quality supervision station, the person in charge of the supervision company, and the project supervision personnel were derelict in their duties.
Obviously, behind the "sad project" of the Huimin project, the corresponding is the virtualization of construction supervision and project acceptance, which is a series of illegal crimes and dereliction of duty. At present, the relevant accountability process has been initiated, and the demolition and reconstruction of the community is also on the agenda. However, such an extreme case undoubtedly sounded the alarm again for the quality assurance of popular projects such as shantytown reform communities and resettlement houses.
In fact, it is not uncommon for quality problems to occur in shantytown reform communities and resettlement houses. For example, in August this year, it was reported that less than 5 years after the completion of the poverty alleviation and relocation centralized resettlement project in Xinhua County, Hunan Province, a scene of "cracking of the outer wall of the building, cracks appeared on the indoor ceiling and ground, and water leakage in the toilet, kitchen and bedroom"; In July this year, a resettlement community in Yaohai District, Hefei, Anhui Province was exposed to the owner of the building after completing the lottery selection in March this year, and the owner found that there were "crooked signs" in the building.
As we all know, shantytown houses, resettlement houses, and old community renovation are all proper livelihood projects. Its quality assurance, on the one hand, is connected to the people's dream of "living in peace"; On the one hand, it is also related to public safety, and there is no room for mistakes. However, in reality, this type of housing does not directly face market competition like commercial housing, and all parties lack sufficient motivation in quality supervision; At the same time, due to the uncertainty of capital investment, these houses are also prone to illegal lowering of standards or shoddy quality during construction.
These realities show that the construction of shantytown houses, resettlement houses, and urban village renovation requires more targeted quality checks during and in advance. For example, improve the transparency of bidding, actively introduce resident supervision in the construction process, and strengthen the supervision of construction units. After all, even if accountability is taken seriously after the fact, the cost of "rework" is too high.
In addition, special attention needs to be paid to preventing corruption in the construction of such houses. Because, compared with the construction of commercial housing directly responsible for the developer, this kind of housing construction with a guaranteed nature, many of which are carried out by the local government or the local government and the developer, the relationship between the city and the market has become more ambiguous, and it has also increased the space for corruption such as power-for-money transactions.
The previous ** report shows that in recent years, dilapidated housing renovation, demolition and resettlement housing, and shantytown transformation have become areas with a high incidence of "micro-corruption" in the housing field. In July this year, Heilongjiang reported five typical cases of corruption and work style problems in the renovation of old urban communities. Corruption in the field of engineering construction not only gives the "green light" to illegal operations such as cutting corners, but also eats away at precious financial construction funds, thereby increasing the probability of "tofu slag" projects.
Therefore, for people's livelihood projects such as the transformation of shantytowns and the construction of urban villages, it is necessary to give prominence to the construction of a clean government, run anti-corruption into them, and minimize the "moths" so that those who violate laws and regulations pay the due price.
Strengthening the quality assessment of affordable housing construction is also worthy of serious consideration. Today, when urbanization has entered the "second half", on the one hand, people have higher and higher requirements for the quality of shantytown reform communities and resettlement houses; On the other hand, there is no longer as much space for large-scale development as in the past, and if the quality is not maintained, the "tofu scum" projects will appear frequently, which will not only affect the rights and interests of residents, but also increase the financial burden of local governments.
All in all, no matter from which point of view, the bottom line of the quality of popular projects such as shantytown resettlement must be maintained.
Written by Yang Mo (**person).
Edited by Bruce Ma.
Proofreading by Li Lijun.