Thousands of officials were charged for corruption offences
across the country in 2005, it has been revealed recently.
Thirty-two senior officials in Guangdong alone were among those
arrested.
And as part of ongoing efforts to crackdown on corruption, the
procuratorate department in Beijing announced yesterday that it
would set up a "blacklist database" of people who offer bribes.
It is not yet known if other areas will follow suit.
Among those charged in Guangdong recently was Feng Keye, former
head of the Guangdong Economical and Technological Co-operation
Office.
He faced a trial at Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court for
accepting bribes worth HK$1.27 million (US$163,800) from two
shareholders of a steel company in the city of Heyuan in South
China's Guangdong Province between 1995 and 1997.
The provincial disciplinary department began investigating the
case late in 2004 and transferred the case to the local
procuratorate early in 2005.
He was one of 32 corrupt senior officials at the provincial
department head level who were tracked down by the Guangdong
Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist
Party of China and the Guangdong Provincial Department of
Supervision in 2005.
In addition, a total of 295 middle-ranking officials
county-level or division directors of a provincial department were
investigated and detained accordingly in 2005.
"Most of the corrupt officials seized in 2005 were accused of
taking bribes, dereliction of duty or gambling," said Ren Jianhua,
deputy secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Supervision
Department.
Other senior officials who were accused of taking bribes in 2005
include Chen Zhongyuan, former secretary of Foshan's Nanhai
District Party Committee; Guan Xuezhong, former director of the
China State Shipbuilding Corp's Guangzhou Bureau; and Wang Chengli,
general manager of Guangzhou Steel Group.
Ren said that senior officials accused of dereliction of duty in
2005 were primarily related to the coal mine flooding accident last
August in Xingning, a sub-ordinate city of Meizhou in the northeast
of the province.
One of them, Hu Jianchang, former deputy director of Guangdong
Provincial Bureau of Work Safety, was accused of both dereliction
of duty and taking bribes.
And Wu Huali, former head of the Huizhou Public Security Bureau,
was among the officials accused of gambling overseas.
Deterrent effect
According to a bulletin recently released by the Guangdong
Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist
Party of China, the province investigated a total of 4,289 cases
related to government officials' violations of laws or Party
disciplines, 220 cases of which involved economic losses of more
than 1 million yuan (US$125,000).
The efforts helped retrieve losses worth 1.27 billion yuan
(US$160 million) for the State.
Ren Jiantao, a public administration professor with
Guangzhou-based Zhongshan University, said that the province's
anti-graft efforts would prove a deterrent to government officials
while further building up the confidence of people to fight against
corruption.
The "blacklist database" in Beijing also aims to highlight the
people who offer bribes to officials.
"All the information of individuals or units that were sentenced
by the court for bribing others will be put on the blacklist," said
Mu Ping, chief procurator of the Beijing Municipal People's
Procuratorate, during the city's annual people's congress
meeting.
After its completion, the database will be open to relevant
departments or units, said the official.
For example, the procuratorate in Shijingshan District has
issued a blacklist of people, who have previously given bribes, to
the disciplinary department of Shougang Steel, with the aim to
prevent possible corruption or abuse of duty during the company's
relocation process.
Firm action
Severe punishments should be meted out for government officials
who have violated Party rules in such ways as abuse of power,
embezzlement of public funds, giving and receiving bribes, and
dereliction of duty, Mu said in his report delivered to the
congress.
In 2005, the procuratorates in Beijing put on record 292
corruption cases with the involvement of nearly 100 officials in
senior departments, statistics from Mu's department revealed.
One of the corrupt high-ranking officials, former Land and
Resources Minister Tian Fengshan, was jailed for life last month on
charges of taking bribes as late as 2003, well after the start of
the latest crackdown on graft and other abuses, reports said.
In another development, in Northeast China's Liaoning Province,
almost 7,200 officials have received punishment due to corruption
or malpractice concerns in Liaoning. Among them, 27 are
director-general level senior officials.
The money involved in the cases is around 740 million yuan
(US$92 million), according to Provincial Commission for Discipline
Inspection of Liaoning.
In the past year, every city of Liaoning Province has taken firm
action in fighting corruption, especially those who were involved
in taking bribes, the coal mine industry or the education fees
issue.
Some public servants were ordered to quit their roles in coal
mine businesses.
(China Daily January 19, 2006)