A small victory for public's right to share information

Dismayed by the Beijing municipal government's introduction of a car plate lottery in December, to tackle traffic woes, 25-year-old law firm assistant Ye Xiaojing requested information from three municipal government agencies about government-owned cars so the public could track pledges to curb their use.

Can you tell me briefly what you've done to get the information?

In December I wrote to the Public Security Bureau, the Finance Bureau and the Municipal Transport Commission, asking for disclosure of the number of vehicles government agencies owned and a list of their models. The Public Security Bureau and the transport commission said they could not disclose the information and suggested I go to the Finance Bureau. The Finance Bureau said the information would be included in the municipal government budgetary report to be made public in March, but this did not list the models of government-owned cars. How do you feel about the outcome? I think I'm more happy than disappointed because it represents a step forward, given the fact many others did not get any response when they asked for the disclosure of information.

Do you think the number they made public is a true reflection of the number of vehicles the municipal government owns?

It only said that the municipal agencies, which are wholly publicly funded, owned a total of 62,026 vehicles. I was actually dismayed by this because the public has no way of knowing if the number is credible. I think the government would have been better off providing a breakdown of the vehicles owned by individual government agencies and what models they are.

Why did you decide to do what you've done in the first place?

When the municipal government announced the car plate lottery system in December, I wondered what the government would do to help address the traffic problem. It said it would freeze the number of public-funded cars, but not how they would impose such a freeze. Did it have a cap? Did that mean the number of vehicles owned by the government was already too high? I believed the information would help answer those questions.