Accounts used by officials to cover up bribes are eliminated

Following the implementation in January of harsher rules against bribes and gifts, provincial governments are abolishing special accounts that have been misused by officials to hide ill-gotten gains.

In August, the Guizhou government joined at least three other provinces in canceling a special bank account that officials had used to deposit money and remain under the radar of graft investigators, said Huang Wensheng, a senior official of the Guizhou provincial Discipline Inspection Committee.

The first "clean governance accounts" were established in the 1990s to reduce corruption while protecting the privacy of officials. Over a dozen provincial-level governments had established such accounts. Sichuan and Gansu province, as well as the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, recently eliminated them.