Agencies and enterprises in South Pyongan province compete to inflate reported contributions to local nurseries and kindergartens, leaving logistics workers exhausted as they scramble to meet quotas.
“Logistics officials at each agency and enterprise must report their provision of supplies to nurseries and kindergartens ahead of the year-end review, and with the party issuing an order to expand supplies to nurseries and kindergartens, officials are busy running around,” a Daily NK source in South Pyongan province said recently.
In particular, with the introduction of daily logs precisely recording the supplies provided to nurseries and kindergartens by each entity, workplaces are openly competing to offer more support.
As a result, the logistics workers at each workplace are growing increasingly unhappy as they race around providing food factories with raw materials or buying supplies on their own at marketplaces.
“When people upstairs give orders, that’s it for them, but the people who actually have to implement those orders must tend farms attached to their workplaces, trade supplies and even race around marketplaces,” the source said. “Even if they do all this, they must get judged in comparison to other workplaces, so their frustration inevitably builds.”
Workplaces inflate numbers by dividing single items into multiple categories
Workplaces without the financial wherewithal employ ruses, namely, by dividing up supplies in a way that simply boosts their numbers. In fact, the logistics department of one coal mine in Kaechon might provide a sweet, two pieces of taffy, a small bag of snacks and a slice of carrot or pear, but report this as providing “three or four kinds of support.”
People who know this to be the case say that “a single serving has ultimately been divided into three” and that “only the number on paper has grown, while the amount [of support] remains the same.”
With the party fostering a competitive atmosphere as it emphasizes support for local nurseries and kindergartens, public response has been divided.
On the other hand, other people take a different view. “In our time, we never got anything like this but still said there was ‘nothing to envy,’ but kids nowadays can at least chant this with a piece of taffy in their mouths,” they say. “It’s good that children are getting a bit of support.”
Still others praise how the party “has ordered efforts to support nurseries and kindergartens to lighten the load on parents.”
