Nominal: The Handong Game, the Energy System's Counterattack

The financial problems in Guangming District are not just about not having any land to sell.

During Ding Yizhen's tenure, the Guangming Peak project was launched on a large scale.

Land acquisition and demolition, road network infrastructure construction, and supporting facility construction were carried out simultaneously throughout the district, with a massive amount of fiscal funds invested in the early stages.

Land acquisition compensation, demolition and resettlement, engineering construction, and supporting renovations—each of these is a huge, fixed expenditure, and a large amount of money has already been spent.

However, the project was rife with corrupt transactions, irregular approvals, and fraudulent investment promotion.

Most projects appear to be on track, but in reality they are unfinished, stalled, or operate inefficiently.

Many partner companies, after receiving low-priced land and policy subsidies, failed to start production and operation, generate tax revenue, or drive development as agreed.

Instead, they hoard land, resell it, and obtain subsidies fraudulently.

This resulted in the government's massive initial investment failing to generate returns, the project's profits being completely lost, and a huge amount of sunk costs being accumulated.

At the same time, outstanding payments for projects, final payments for demolition, advance payments for cooperation, and various accounts payable accumulated over the years.

With old debts unresolved and new ones piling up, Guangming District's finances are firmly tied up in a huge debt.

Each year, just repaying interest and settling old debts requires the consumption of most of the government's funds, leaving no money for investing in people's livelihood and regional development.

Here, Zhao Dehan mentioned the issue of the lobby of the Guangming District Petition Bureau.

The petition windows in the lobby of the Guangming District Petition Bureau are very low and have no seats.

Visitors can only squat, bend over, and kneel, looking up to talk to the staff sitting inside the window.

Standing or squatting is uncomfortable, causing physical discomfort and psychological pressure.

This window was set up by Ding Yizhen; its original purpose was not to make things convenient for the public, but to discourage petitioners from going to petition.

People suffer every time they come, and many can't stand it and are unwilling to come back to report problems.

Zhao Dehan discovered this problem after arriving in Guangming District and has been trying to solve it, but unfortunately, Guangming District really doesn't have the money to renovate it.

"The matter you mentioned may seem minor, but its impact is quite severe."

Upon hearing Zhao Dehan mention the petition office, Zhou Chuyi suddenly remembered it.

According to the timeline, it seems that Li Dakang already knew about this at this point.

"You should submit a report to Mayor Wu Xiongfei and ask the city to allocate some funds to renovate that area first."

"A window meant to make things convenient for the public has become a window that makes things difficult for them; this is outrageous."

Zhou Chuyi gave instructions to Zhao Dehan and Sun Liancheng to go back and make immediate rectifications, hoping that Secretary Dakang wouldn't use this as an excuse to cause trouble so soon.

"Go on," Zhou Chuyi told Zhao Dehan to continue his report.

Another reason why Guangming District's finances are in this state is the mismatch between financial power and responsibilities.

Guangming District is the central urban area of ​​Jingzhou, and a large number of public services—education, medical care, sanitation, and public security—are under its jurisdiction.

In contrast, the financial power at the district level is extremely limited.

The majority of revenue from large tax-paying enterprises, high-quality tax revenue sectors, and land transfer fees in the city belongs to the municipal finance.

Guangming District bears 100% of the grassroots affairs, stability maintenance pressure, and people's livelihood responsibilities, but can only receive a very small portion of the fiscal revenue.

When the city issues various policies and deploys various tasks, it often only gives the tasks but not the funding, and the district finance has to raise all the matching funds on its own.

Especially land transfer revenue, even if Guangming District transfers land within its jurisdiction.

The proceeds from land transfers also need to be shared with the city level at each level, with most of the funds going to the city-level platform, leaving very little for the district to actually use.

For example, last year the city uniformly raised the salaries of community workers; the document was issued by the Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau.

The funding was to be covered by each district, with Guangming District incurring an additional expenditure of nearly 20 million yuan.

In addition to these factors, corruption leading to the loss of state-owned assets is also a contributing factor.

During his tenure, Ding Yizhen abused his full decision-making power over the Guangmingfeng project to collude deeply with various unscrupulous businessmen and engage in rampant self-interest.

A large number of land transactions involve irregularities such as approvals, false changes, low-price sales, and bribery.

Many land transaction procedures appear compliant, but in reality, they are based on bribery, falsified documents, and irregular approvals.

Because of artificially low land prices and illegal concessions, Guangming District should have collected the full amount of land transfer fees.

A large amount of state-owned assets were intercepted and lost, resulting in extremely large losses.

Their preliminary calculations show that the fiscal deficit caused by illegal low-price land sales in recent years alone amounts to several billion yuan.

"The biggest challenge right now is that recovering these illegal transactions is extremely difficult and takes a very long time."

"All illegally acquired land has completed ownership registration, contract filing, and property transfer."

"We want to invalidate the transaction, recover the lost funds, and reclaim the state-owned land."

"It cannot be resolved by administrative orders; it must go through the complete process of disciplinary inspection, judicial litigation, and legal ruling."

"The whole process is lengthy, complicated, and faces huge obstacles, making it impossible to revitalize funds and fill the fiscal gap in the short term."

Zhao Dehan closed the document and summarized: "Governor, the financial depletion of Guangming District is not caused by a single reason."

"The main reason is the overspending of land revenue, while the bad debts left by the previous administration are a chronic problem."

"The rigid expenditures due to emergencies are the trigger, the mismatch between financial power and responsibilities is a deep-seated structural problem, and the constraints of the budget system itself add up to several factors."

"Currently, the district's monthly fixed expenditures—salaries, social security, and basic operations—are approximately 42 million yuan."

"However, the district's general public budget revenue is less than 30 million yuan per month, and the shortfall is entirely supported by transfer payments from higher levels and temporary loans."

After he finished speaking, the office fell silent.

Zhou Chuyi stood up and walked to the window.

He turned his back to the three of them and watched the traffic below for a while.

"Zhao Dehan," he began, his voice flat, "how long do you think it will take for the problems in Guangming District to recover?"

Zhao Dehan thought for a moment, "To resolve the structural contradictions, at least one full budget cycle, three years, is needed."

"Three years." Zhou Chuyi repeated, turning around. "Three years, and the Bright District is still being held back by these messy accounts. What are your thoughts on that?"

Neither Zhao Dehan nor Sun Liancheng had any good solutions to the current situation.

However, Zhou Chuyi noticed that Sun Liancheng seemed to have something to say.

When Zhao Dehan was talking about the recovery of these illegal transactions in Guangming District, he seemed quite agitated and wanted to say something.

"District Chief Sun, you seem to have something to say?" Zhou Chuyi looked at Sun Liancheng.

"Governor Zhou," Sun Liancheng's throat bobbed, as if he had made a great decision, "there's something I really want to report to you..."

Sun Liancheng sat down in front of the sofa and took something out of his briefcase—a small, silver-gray pen-shaped object, which looked like some kind of electronic device.

A voice recorder!

All eyes turned to Sun Liancheng, and the atmosphere in the room changed in an instant.