Government and Policy

Officials to be required to report assets

By Zheng Caixiong (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-01-21 07:49

GUANGZHOU - South China's Guangdong province will launch a pilot project this year requiring Party and government officials to report their assets in the latest move to curb corruption.

Guangdong's deputy Party chief Zhu Mingguo said the campaign will be introduced in designated cities and departments before the year-end and will be expanded to become province-wide in the following years.

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Zhu, who is also secretary of the provincial commission for discipline inspection, made the remarks in an annual work report at a plenary session of the commission on Tuesday.

But he did not reveal any details about the project or mention if the information would be made public.

Zhu also said a new system will be introduced this year to standardize protocol for officials' acceptance of gifts.

And Guangdong will also further reform policies surrounding government car use, he added.

"The moves aim to ensure honest and clean governance in Guangdong," Zhu said.

Zhu urged officials and civil servants to refuse invitations for banquets, sightseeing tours, and entertainment and fitness events unrelated to their work.

He also pledged to introduce more effective and concrete measures to fight corruption in 2011.

Lai Songling, a professor at Jinan University in the provincial capital of Guangzhou, said the pilot project will reduce corruption. A transparent and effective system should also be established to expand supervision of Party and government officials, he added.

The project comes after multiple corruption cases involving senior Party and government officials in Guangdong in 2010.

Last year, 31 of the province's city-level Party and government officials were investigated for graft, figures from Guangdong's commission for discipline inspection showed.

They included Li Qihong, former mayor of Zhongshan city; Li Ping, former Party secretary of Shenzhen's Futian district; Xian Wen, former deputy director of Zhuhai People's Congress; and Ni Junxiong, former deputy director of Guangdong provincial committee for comprehensive management of public security.

The provincial commission for discipline inspection also cooperated with the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China to investigate former Shenzhen mayor Xu Zongheng's graft case last year.

Guangdong's commission for discipline inspection last year investigated 4,712 corruption cases involving 4,963 people, including 217 Party and government officials above county level.

Economic losses valued at more than 1.25 billion yuan ($190 million) had been retrieved in corruption cases.