Yanggang Province’s party committee recently took officials in Hyesan to task for failing to properly execute the party’s childcare policies, Daily NK has learned.
A source in Yanggang Province told Daily NK on Monday that the provincial party committee called in all party and government cadres from downtown Hyesan for a meeting at the municipal party committee’s meeting room on Jan. 27.
At the meeting, provincial party committee officials focused on a list of apparent “deviations” in how the cadres were carrying out childcare policy, and discussed measures they needed to implement.
Provincial party committee officials noted that young married couples were not having children, and those who were could not properly care for them, leading to severely malnourished children. The officials went on to say that while measures need to be taken to implement policies that can reduce the burdens of raising children, these discussions, not to mention the implementation of such policies, was not happening.
Provincial officials further said although they were working to ensure the provision of energy and supplies so that city and county animal farms and dairy factories could operate at full capacity, they had failed to properly do so in January, and would work harder to accomplish this going forward.
Provincial officials also criticized Hyesan officials who had allegedly pilfered dairy products meant for children.
The officials most sharply slammed the failure of Hyesan officials to properly provide children with dairy goods earmarked for them, and even suggested taking “legal action” against officials who pilfered the products.
According to the source, the meeting spent quite a bit of time discussing how Hyesan residents with children had lodged a report to the provincial party committee last month alleging official corruption among Hyesan officials. The locals complained that they were not receiving dairy goods despite the party’s call for the provision of dairy products to childrearing families.
In fact, Hyesan residents had filed a complaint to the provincial party committee — complete with certified witness testimony — after learning that officials with the municipal party committee’s “labor organization department” consumed dairy products produced in local factories from September to January. The dairy products were meant for families with children.
The source said the provincial officials sharply criticized the local officials’ actions, and declared they would mount an “intensive” investigation into the municipal party committee’s labor organization department.
Provincial officials also dragged before the podium two factory officials who allegedly stole dairy products for the labor organization department officials and subjected them to a “public ideological struggle.” Ultimately, the two officials were turned over to the Ministry of Social Security after the meeting.
After the meeting, some locals said that the party is protecting its own by punishing only “administrative officials” while letting the party officials go, even though the factory officials who pilfered the dairy products and municipal party committee officials who consumed them were practically one and the same.
