President Jiang Zemin acknowledged that suffering was inevitable for laid-off workers ('Appeal on plight of laid-off workers', South China Morning Post, December 26).
However, I am sceptical that the pain will be evenly spread across mainland China.
Time and again we hear from Chinese officials that they are doing their utmost to fight corruption but yet there seems to be no end in sight.
How can the ordinary state workers be certain that no government money is being diverted away from their re-training? There must be greater accountability and transparency in the reform process.
I call on President Jiang to create independent auditing bodies to oversee the reform process.
Such bodies should have the power to investigate improper use of funds.
