Four Rings Youth | The rural public toilet only opens when the leaders inspect it, and they still have the nerve to blame the low quality of the villagers

On the evening of July 20, CCTV Finance exposed the rural public toilets in Jishan County, Shanxi Province, which were “built but not used” and “only opened when leaders inspected them”, quickly attracting attention.

In response, the county government of Jishan County confirmed that the situation was true. The local government has organized a special meeting to arrange and deploy rectification work, conduct a comprehensive investigation of the use and management of rural public toilets in the county, and effectively implement long-term management mechanisms such as funds, personnel, and systems to ensure the normal opening of rural public facilities. At the same time, the county discipline inspection and supervision commission will seriously hold accountable those who are derelict in their duties.

According to reports, in 2023, Jishan County spent 2.3 million yuan to build 23 new public toilets in order to promote the rural toilet revolution, which means that the average cost of these public toilets exposed by public opinion is as high as 100,000 yuan.

The public toilets built with a lot of money are equipped with all the supporting facilities. However, the new public toilets are locked, and the villagers can only continue to use the old and smelly dry toilets next to them.

This kind of comparison reminds everyone all the time that the new toilets are just a face project, and they are “exhibits” specially provided for leaders.

This incident once again exposed the old problem of some places in the construction of rural public toilets, which is to focus on construction but not on use, and to emphasize construction over use.

It stands to reason that building public toilets is only the first step. Subsequent maintenance and use, and whether the villagers are satisfied, can test the quality of this work.

However, in actual operation, many places only think about completing the KPIs set by the above at the beginning of the construction. Driven by the hard assessment standards such as the number of toilet renovations and coverage rate, they build for the sake of building, pursue short-term compliance, and do not really consider the needs of the villagers from their perspective.

Jishan County gave two reasons for not allowing villagers to use the new public toilets: first, using public toilets would incur a lot of expenses, and second, they were worried that the villagers’ quality was not high enough to bring maintenance problems.

These reasons are untenable at first glance.

Building a public toilet for 100,000 yuan is really not cheap for a small county like Jishan County. When planning the project, didn’t they consider adopting a more reasonable construction plan, saving funds, and leaving some funds for subsequent maintenance and use?

Public toilets need continuous financial investment to be normally open. Water and electricity bills, cleaning fees, and maintenance fees are all indispensable. Now that they have been exposed, the local government says that they want to “effectively implement long-term management mechanisms such as funds, personnel, and systems”. Where will this money come from? Will it squeeze other people’s livelihood expenditures?

Jishan County, Shanxi Province, is a water-scarce area, and it is cold in winter, so ordinary water-flushed toilets may not be suitable for the local reality. It needs to be used normally all year round, and the maintenance cost is relatively high.

If the financial problem cannot be fundamentally solved, “implementing long-term management mechanisms” may be just empty talk, making people worry that after the limelight passes, the expensive public toilets will still be locked.

As for the local government’s dislike of the villagers’ low quality, it is even more of a scapegoat.

Building new toilets in rural areas is to benefit the villagers and change their hygiene habits. If the villagers do not cherish public toilets, the village committees and other administrative departments should guide them to abide by the rules of public toilets through publicity and education, instead of disliking them and directly not allowing them to use them.

No matter how gorgeous the public toilets are, they are for people to use, not just for people to see.

This incident has caused such a big response, because the construction of rural toilets has been chaotic in recent years. Some places bury a large bucket underground, without installing a toilet and a small toilet house. The villagers have nowhere to go to the toilet. When someone comes to inspect, they will give the villagers 200 yuan in advance to cover their mouths; some places’ septic tanks and sewage pipes are simply not connected. When it rains, the sewage from the septic tanks of every household will overflow onto the streets, and the streets are full of feces and water…

Despite the constant criticism, similar image projects are still emerging one after another.

Of course, compared to this, Jishan County, Shanxi Province, is not the worst. At least their public toilets are well-built and equipped with all the supporting facilities, but the subsequent maintenance funds are not available, which leads to the public toilets being “locked” for many years.

But now these bright new public toilets have also become a hot potato for the local government. If they are not open, it is a proper face project; if they are open, they have to worry about funds, which seems very wasteful.

If the relevant departments consider the people sincerely when promoting the construction of public toilets, instead of thinking about how to satisfy the leaders, they will seek a construction plan that is more in line with the local reality and saves water resources, and they will not face the difficult situation now.

To prevent this kind of waste, the key is to see what the leaders’ satisfaction standards are.

Therefore, it is still necessary to start with reforming the assessment indicators, and use the opening rate of public toilets and the satisfaction of villagers to replace the number of toilets and the coverage rate of toilets.

Force the administrative departments to take meeting the needs of the villagers as the first hard indicator of assessment, so that there will be no chaos of public toilets that can only be seen but not used.