Stricter supervision of SOE leaders needed

Rent seeking, nepotism and the squandering of public money on luxurious feasts and sight-seeing trips are some of the problems that the disciplinary inspection teams of the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection of the Communist Party of China discovered recently in nine State-owned enterprises directly under the auspices of the State Council.

These giant SOEs - PetroChina, CNOOC, China Mobile Communications Corp, China Telecom, State Grid, Southern China Power Grid Co Ltd, China Power Investment Corp, State Nuclear Power Technology Corp and China National Machinery Industry Corp - are pillar enterprises in their sectors and their well-being has a bearing on the country's overall economy.

On the one hand, we feel shocked that the abuse of power by leaders in such key central SOEs can be so rampant and serious. On the other hand, we are gratified that the inspection teams could discover these problems and tell the public about them.