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Land Law Poorly Enforced
Lax enforcement of land laws by local governments at all levels is to blame for most of last year' s violations of land regulations.
According to a Ministry of Land and Resources report released Wednesday, some local governments ignored land laws as they pushed economic development projects. And most of the violations occurred in relatively developed areas.
Local governments themselves accounted for only 15.3 percent of the violations. But their inadequate enforcement of land laws allowed local businesses to engage in illegal land use. The report says, there were 168,309 land-related violation cases last year, involving 28,732 hectares of land. And 10,983 of them are cultivated.
By the end of last year, 86.2 percent of the cases had been solved, and 630 of the 773 persons held responsible were punished. When violations occur, the usual practice in many places is to fine the law-breakers and have them go through the land-use application process. This actually aids offenders and encourages others to ignore land laws because the regulations are rarely enforced, the report declares.
A more effective way of preventing violations would be to have land managed more closely and independently. The report points out that grassroots land administrations are subordinate to local governments at the same level under the present management system and often influenced by them.
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