The hopes of eliminating corruption by awarding officials for creating short mobile phone text messages is a waste of time, says an article in the Pearl River Evening Post. Excerpt:

The discipline department of Jinan, Shandong province, recently kicked off a competition among government leaders, asking them to send in short text messages suggesting ways to build a corruption-free government.

Excellent messages will "find place in a book" that will be published later.

The Jinan government showed its initiative and willing-ness to tackle corruption with an unusual move to educate officials. But if building a clean government was as easy as typing in a few text messages, pigs would fly.

As the government claimed: "The short message concept features speedy and wide coverage." The government said the purpose of this competition is to make the whole society realize the importance of eliminating corruption and teaching government officials to stay away from the social evil.

It's hard to imagine those who win the first prize in this competition would take lesser bribes than those who lose.

When some officials flout laws and regulations of the State, a short message will not make them change their attitude and behave.

Probably the Jinan government thought of the idea only to let the public know they are concerned and are thinking of ways to fight corruption.

In fact, if the government really wants to take measures, it should first of all ask officials to report their personal and family assets and incomes. That will be more effective to achieve the goal of building a clean government.

(China Daily June 15, 2009)