A career free of corruption may pay off in cash in Zhejiang Province.

As of January 1, some government employees in the east China province will be eligible for a 300,000-yuan (US$36,000) pension after retirement if they are proven to have been clean and honest during their tenure.

Zhejiang Province plans to introduce the Guaranteed Money System for Clean Government in Xiacheng District of Hangzhou, the provincial capital, and Cixi City, according to the Modern Golden News.

Zhu Zhongyi, secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission of Xiacheng District, said the pension is made up of contributions paid by the employees and subsidies paid by the local government.

For example, a new public servant at the age of 22 will be required to pay 500 yuan (US$60) yearly and the local government will add 150 yuan (US$18). The amounts of money increase according to the length of service and the position of the employee.

Qualified employees will be eligible to receive up to 300,000 yuan (US$36,000) upon retirement.

"Anyone who is punished during their tenure will not get the full amount," said Zhu, adding that the amount of the deductions will vary depending upon the severity of the punishment.

Those who have received warnings will lose 20 percent of the total; dismissed civil servants will lose 60 percent; and those who are expelled will lose the entire amount.

A draft of the new pension system has been given to the Discipline Inspection Commission for final approval and is expected to take effect on January 1, 2005.

In Cixi, a scheme called Public Clean Government Accumulation Funds will be funded entirely by the local government, according to the report.

Tang Yijun, secretary-general of the Zhejiang Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission, was quoted in a local newspaper as saying that the launch of the clean pension system would be conducive to healthy government.

Tang said it is worth trying to apply economics to ensure officials do not take bribes.

However, the new practice will not be applied to other places in Zhejiang Province in the near future, Tang stated.

Some experts believe that while the new pension system can work as a supplement to other methods of eliminating corruption, it is not effective enough on its own.

"More attention should be paid to building a power scrutiny system to standardize the personnel system, and reform financial management and the administrative examination and approval system," said Xu Jianfeng, vice director of the Zhejiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciences' Economic Institute.

Earlier this year, the Public Security Bureau in Huzhou began to apply a similar pension scheme to police officers. About 300 yuan (US$36) of an officer's salary is deducted every month while up to 500 yuan (US$60) is paid by the bureau. Under the plan, officers would receive pensions of about 370,000 yuan (US$45,000) as a reward for having unblemished 40-year records.

The decision was the target of widespread public criticism: a poll of more than 2,000 people on Sina.com.cn resulted in 60 percent voting against the pension and 73 percent saying it would not help to reduce corruption.

Opposition was largely on the grounds that a clean record should be a basic expectation, not a bonus to be rewarded, and that the system would involve substantial expenditures without reducing corruption.

(China Daily December 14, 2004)