Kezhou Xiao (London School of Economics), based on analysis by Yuan, Xinghou (2018)
Sintesi
I paesi privi del processo di competizione elettorale come strumento per la garanzia sull’accountability della la spesa pubblica e gli investimenti dispongono dello strumento della social audit per raggiungere obiettivi simili. Tale strumento si basa sulla soddisfazione degli utenti e su un’analisi completa dei costi e dei benefici sociali delle alternative possibili. Questo approccio potrebbe fornire risultati più sostenibili di quelli basati unicamente sulla competizione elettorale. Una proposta di estensione della Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS) di Guangzhou è stata respinta in seguito ad una social audit, nonostante avesse raggiunto un vasto riconoscimento internazionale. Tale meccanismo può essere utilizzato in un ampio numero di paesi con modelli di governance differenti.
In countries without electoral or “yardstick” competition, ensuring that public spending and infrastructure investment meets the preferences of the population, and also leads to sustainable development, requires mechanisms for public engagement. China has begun experimenting with social audits to evaluate public spending, that focus both on social costs and benefits as well as user responses to examine whether to continue with a given program. This applies also to projects that have been acclaimed internationally and copied elsewhere—such as the Guangzhou Bus Rapid Transport System (GBRT), and the city government had a strong basis to reject an expansion of the “award winning” GBRT that has been a model for others around the world (see Table 1). Indeed, without such direct feedback and evaluation mechanisms even with electoral processes, such programs would likely continue because of donor pressure, as many of the social costs and risks are not perceived by citizens within typical electoral cycles.
The GBRT project in Guangzhou spans from Tianhe Sports Center to the Huangpu Summer Garden, a total length of 22.9 km. This project was first proposed in 2008, and construction started in January 2009, and finished on February 2010. As shown in Table 1, the GBRT became one of the signature BRT projects in the world, with estimated cost at 2.1 billion RMB. To raise funds for the GBRT project, City Investment Group was charged with the leading role from obtaining bank loans, along with support from Guangzhou city’s public funds.
The GBRT project, one of the largest in Asia, the second largest in the world, a performance or social audit was conducted jointly by the Audit Bureau of Guangzhou and the Public Management Research Center, Sun-Yatsen University. This was designed to determine the subjective and objective conditions of existing operations. The metrics of the auditing are divided into two parts: (1) the construction aspect, mainly from project and financial management of project, comparing the realized and proposed goals; (2) the operating aspect, mainly from indicators relating to the speed, passenger capacity, coverage, facilities, secondary congestion and environmental impact and others. In addition to objective metrics, measurements from questionnaire survey and telephone surveys are used to gauge public satisfaction. The results were juxtaposed against alternative transport models—including dedicated bus lanes and expansion of the metro system.
Table 1: BRT Systems in the World
Source: Institute for Transport and Development Policy.
The results of the performance auditing turned out to be surprising. On the objective measures, the average speed did not reach the expected targets, leading to complaints about increasing traffic jams. The parallel and cross-roads became even more crowded, with noticeable congestion. In terms of economic efficiency, public subsidies on GBRT systems perform less efficiently than that of normal bus routes. Compared with further extensions of GBRT projects, the auditing report concluded that the construction of new bus lanes would be more cost-effective in terms of public service delivery, together with minimizing overall congestion and pollution.
The auditing report was not only sent to the Municipal Leadership for review, but also given significant media coverage. Deputies in the Guangzhou Municipal People’s Congress and the city party leadership evaluated the social audit results in examining options for an expansion of the GBRT, along the lines of the CPC Central Committee’s decisions on increasing the role of performance auditing over the reform process. After a careful review process, including technical views from the City Traffic Commission, City Project Construction Committee, and the City Investment Group, the party leadership decided to cancel a new phase of BRT building process in 2014. Given the overall transportation requirements of a metropolitan area with the size and density of Guangzhou, it was argued that the GBRT was much more expensive than dedicated bus lanes, without causing secondary congestion on parallel and cross roads, and did not compete with the metro in terms of citizen preferences and volume of traffic.
In short, the GBRT experience, as presented in the case study by one of the senior officials involved, Mr. Yuan, presents a unique perspective on public engagement and fiscal performance in countries without electoral competition. Unlike in the models of authoritarian or “mixed” development in which a group of elites, either local, or the external donor community, “dictate” what is best for the people, the city party leadership in Guangzhou engaged the public with independent reviews through formal (e.g. local People’s congress) and informal (e.g. media outlets) channels. Considering evidence from all stakeholders, the party leadership revised its investment policy and fiscal decisions in light of both subjective and objective evidence, including costs and benefits, public convenience as well as environmental considerations. The fact that the GBRT has become an international “role model” was appropriately not a factor in the decision. The social audit mechanism can be used effectively in other governance systems, including with electoral competition, and intermediate systems that are found in most emerging market economies.
References
Besley, T. and A. Case, (1995), “Incumbent behavior, vote-seeking, tax-setting and yardstick competition,” American Economic Review, 85, 25-45.
Yuan, X., (2018), “BRTs and Investment Fads: civic engagement and fiscal discipline,” in Ahmad, Niu and Xiao, (2018).
Newsletter n. 9 | May 2018 - download pdf
