Provincial ecological environment departments will establish and implement a reporting reward system before the end of June this year.

　　Recently, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment issued the "Guiding Opinions on the Implementation of the Reporting Reward System for Ecological and Environmental Violations" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), guiding local areas to establish and implement a reporting reward system for ecological and environmental violations.

　　The "Opinions" are divided into three parts: overall requirements, improving the design of the reporting reward system, strengthening organizational support, and implementation. It provides opinions on aspects such as the departments implementing rewards, reward recipients and conditions, scope and forms of rewards, verification of illegal clues, reward disbursement procedures, whistleblower protection, system guarantees, fund supervision, and publicity and training.

　　The "Opinions" point out that local areas should adhere to the correct guidance, focus on winning the battle against pollution prevention and control, solve prominent ecological and environmental problems concerning the people, and fully leverage the driving and demonstration role of reporting rewards. The "Opinions" stipulate that the departments implementing rewards are generally the ecological and environmental departments that make administrative penalty decisions. It encourages whistleblowers to report truthfully and by name, and encourages insiders of enterprises to report. For situations where major ecological and environmental violations are avoided, major ecological and environmental safety hazards are eliminated, or assistance is provided in investigating and handling major ecological and environmental violations and crimes through reporting, substantial rewards can be given to the whistleblower.

　　The "Opinions" require that local areas, in combination with their local conditions, clarify the scope and standards of rewards, pay attention to the combination of material and spiritual rewards, and explore the use of convenient methods such as electronic payment to distribute bonuses. The "Opinions" particularly emphasize strengthening the protection of whistleblowers, requiring local areas to further enhance their sense of responsibility and confidentiality in implementing reporting reward work, reduce the acquisition of unnecessary personal information, strictly protect the personal information of whistleblowers, and adopt methods conducive to protecting whistleblowers when distributing bonuses.

　　Establishing and implementing a reporting reward system is an important measure to implement the spirit of the 19th Central Committee of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, to achieve the modernization of the ecological and environmental governance system and governance capacity, and to continuously deepen the reform of "delegating power, streamlining administration, and improving services," and to strengthen and standardize in-process and post-process supervision. By fully mobilizing the masses and participating in an orderly manner according to law, it can effectively make up for the shortcomings and blind spots in grassroots ecological and environmental law enforcement and supervision, effectively solve prominent ecological and environmental problems concerning the people, and build a social co-governance framework for ecological and environmental protection.

　　According to statistics, 12 provincial-level and 133 city-level ecological and environmental departments have currently established and implemented reporting reward systems, and provinces and cities have jointly issued 155 relevant regulations. In 2018, a total of 9034 reporting rewards were implemented nationwide, with a total reward amount of 4.3624 million yuan. In 2019, the total budget for reporting rewards reached 12.82 million yuan. Local areas have explored and accumulated valuable experience. For example, some areas started reporting rewards as early as 2001; some areas have formulated specific reporting reward regulations for frequently occurring ecological and environmental violations; some areas have set high rewards of up to 100,000 yuan; some areas have jointly issued documents with the finance department to include reward funds in the fiscal budget; and some areas have used convenient methods such as WeChat red envelopes to distribute rewards in addition to traditional bonus rewards. The issuance of the "Opinions" will further improve the top-level design of the reporting reward system at the national level and promote the comprehensive establishment and implementation of this system by local areas.

　　The Ministry of Ecology and Environment requires that provincial-level ecological and environmental departments establish and implement reporting reward systems by the end of June 2020. By the end of 2020, city-level ecological and environmental departments should establish and implement reporting reward systems. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment emphasizes that local areas should publicly disclose relevant regulations on local reporting rewards, reporting methods and channels, and should make the reporting reward system a key aspect of publicity work, carrying out continuous and targeted publicity and interpretation work.