Part Ⅵ Writing (45 min)
The practice is well established in Singapore and Hong Kong ofreserving a fund for incorruptible government officials andrewarding them on retirement. Those who have violated relatedregulations and disciplines on the job will have less or no bonusaccording to the circumstances. What's your opinion on thisissue? Write a composition of about 400 words to state your view.
In the first part of your essay you should state clearly your main argument, and in the second partyou should support your argument with appropriate details. In the last part you should bring whatyou have written to a natural conclusion or make a summary.
You should supply an appropriate title for your essay.
Marks will be awarded for content, organization, grammar and appropriateness. Failure to follow theabove instructions may result in a loss of marks.
We Should Not Pay Civil Servants Not to Corrupt
Is it helpful to build an honest and clean government by a fund for incorruptible civil servants?Such an issue has aroused controversy among the public. Proponents believe the innovativemove will help to fight against corruption and build a clean government. Opponents say that beingclean is an official’s obligation and duty and there is therefore no need to reward them withadditional funds. Personally, I’d like to express my disapproval on this question.
First of all, to establish an accumulation fund for clean officials is in fact a challenge to social justice.Public servants should work diligently in an honest and clean way and abide by laws andregulations when performing their duties. That is the basic requirement for them. Any official whofails in this sense does not deserve the position of a public servant. Extra pay for clean publicservants will naturally damage the image of public servants in the eyes of ordinary people. Inaddition, it will play a negative role in their professional work ethics. When public servants arerewarded for what they should do, what about clean doctors, teachers, lawyers, policemen?Obviously such a policy is not well-grounded.
Secondly, the most unfair part about the reserve fund is that it infringes upon the interests oftaxpayers who contribute to public servants’ salary in the first place. It’s God’s truth that officialsshould work for the taxpayers’ interests. But to sustain such a fund system, a large number ofworkers and farmers will have to pay more for what public servants are supposed to do. As for thereserve fund, only when the amount of the award comes to a tempting figure can it restraincorruption to a certain degree. However, it is impossible to raise such an enormous fund only fromtheir welfare fund. So, the fund is actually a disguised form of reward to public servants throughtaking advantage of fiscal revenue.
Relatively speaking, public servants are well paid for their service, so it is not rational to raise such afund of reward. What we can do is to strengthen supervision mechanisms, so as to effectivelytrack down and punish corrupted officials and let them pay higher costs for their behavior. Inaddition, to fundamentally minimizing the corruption phenomenon in the government, we shouldtake effective measures to put a limit on their power in an attempt to provide fewer opportunitiesto abuse power.