Advisers recall guiding life during lockdown

Xue Wei, member of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the CPPCC and president of the Hubei Zhongxin Accounting Firm

Four months after the construction of the Huoshenshan Hospital－a makeshift facility built to treat COVID-19 patients in Wuhan－Xue Wei and his colleagues were still working on settling the accounts for the project.

"The task is expected to be completed soon. The duration of the accounting work is much shorter than for most of the projects we worked on before," Xue said.

His firm was mainly responsible for drawing up a budget and calculating the cost of the project with representatives of the construction companies involved.

"When we were called upon to form an accounts team for the project, many of our employees had already returned to their homes outside Wuhan for Spring Festival," Xue said.

In response, he mobilized eight engineers, who had arrived at the construction site on Jan 25, to keep a record of the project.

Later in the account settlement process, 20 more employees joined the group to assist with the heavy workload, he added.

The rushed preparation ahead of the project resulted in a heavier task for the settlement process, which involves checking on thousands of manual workers and huge sums of money, according to Xue.

"When the project began, the focus was to produce high-quality work and ensure construction finished on schedule. The contract items and cost accumulation were not perfect initially," he said, adding that the cooperation of different units in the final stages will guarantee an efficient settlement.

Regular accounting projects usually last two to three years, because the preparatory work－including evaluating feasibility, choosing the location, drawing up a budget and process design－usually takes six months to a year, according to Xue.

However, the preparation time for the Huoshenshan project was 24 hours, he said, noting that much of the work was undertaken in tandem with construction work.

The tough assignment, starting on the first day of the Lunar New Year, was not something the 50-year-old had experienced before.

"But I was encouraged by the environment, where people from all walks of life were fighting on the front line against the epidemic," he said.

"It was really meaningful to accomplish such an urgent task with the cooperation of different parties in the unusual price market that existed at the time," he said.

He said the situation was complicated by the lockdown and the Spring Festival holiday.

"When the people of Wuhan were isolated at home, we had the chance to do something. The city had to keep running," he said.

Xue said he has always been interested in military history, so he was never afraid of the dangerous environment he had entered. Instead, he was more concerned about the safety of his team members and his family, along with the smooth development of the project.

"Thousands of people worked on the Huoshenshan construction site, so I had no excuse to be afraid," he said.