Representatives from the two government units receiving the “Snail Award” in Jinyun County, E China’s Zhejiang Province, on August 14.

Two government units received a special award in East China's Zhejiang Province on August 14. Unlike most awards ceremonies, the recipients were less than honoured to receive their prize -  the "Snail Award" - as they were recognized for their lack of efficiency. 

The Snail Award, which was set up by Jinyun County in Lishui City, Zhejiang Province in 2018, is ironically awarded to those who fail to perform their duties in a timely manner on important livelihood issues. The latest "winners" were a team for a hospital relocation project and the county's water conservancy bureau. On receiving the award, both representatives reflected on their incompetence, and vowed to do better for the public in the future. 

"There is no fixed time or number of recipients for this award," Yin Bibo, a local discipline-inspection commissioner, explained to media, "Winners are selected based on problems reported by the public, and then verified by the local government."

Yin also affirmed the award's positive effect, citing the past example of a road construction team in a village that had spent more than a year on their job and still not completed it. "After receiving the award, they finished the project within one month," Yin said.

"We set up this award in the hope that one day no one will win it," Yin noted.

Jinyun County is not the only place to start giving out "Snail Awards". In January 2016, Taizhou, East China's Jiangsu Province, became the first city to set up the award nationwide. In 2019, Shengzhou of Zhejiang Province and Zhanjiang of South China's Guangdong Province followed suit. 

"This award should be promoted nationwide," many netizens wrote on Weibo, China's top microblogging platform.