16 provincial-level officials punished last year
( 2002-01-24 11:33 ) (8 )

A total of 175,364 people, including 16 provincial and ministerial level officials, were punished by disciplinary inspection and supervision departments at different levels in China last year, a senior official said Wednesday.

These officials, including 6,076 at the county level and 497 at the prefecture level, do not include army officers who were punished last year, said Wei Jianxing, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.

Wei disclosed the figures at the Seventh Plenary Conference of the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection of the CPC, which was convened in Beijing Wednesday.

In a work report on behalf of the Standing Committee of the commission he leads, Wei hailed the fruitful efforts made by the Party to build a good Party style and a clean government and to combat corruption in 2001.

A series of major decisions made by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council last year have strongly helped the current anti-corruption campaign, the official said.

In 2001, the authorities uncovered 174,633 corruption cases, according to Wei.

In the first 11 months of last year, the authorities confiscated cash and securities worth 250 million yuan from corrupt officials, with over 1,400 people being punished for accepting illegal payments.

Last year, China made great efforts to further reform the financial system to curb corruption, and promote democracy at the grass-roots level, he said.

This year, more efforts will be made to regularize the conduct of officials, deal with a number of major corruption cases, and push forward structural reforms in financial and personnel systems, Wei said.