Campaign against graft to intensify

China's top anti-graft watchdog intends to intensify its inspections of government departments and state-owned organizations next year, according to an official with direct knowledge of the matter.

"The efforts are part of the inspections begun after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012," said Luo Liping, a Central Commission of Disciplinary Inspection official charged with organizing inspections, in an interview on the commission's website.

The commission has already completed eight rounds of inspections of local governments and State-owned enterprises since the congress and by the end of this year will finish inspections of financial institutions, the website quoted him as saying in an article on Sunday.

He said that after the congress, more than 280 inspections were placed on the agenda to focus on local governments, financial institutions, central government departments, SOEs and state-owned organizations.

"Inspections in 149 locations were completed covering a wide range of local governments and State-owned enterprises," Luo said.

The remaining tasks would be completed next year, he said, before the 19th National Congress of the CPC convenes in 2017.

"The inspection of State-owned enterprises is an important component of the overall tasks, and it took inspectors two years to look into 55 State-owned enterprises," Luo said. He added that they had made 11,000 inquires to companies' staff members, responded to about 110,000 whistleblowing letters and investigated about 500 companies affiliated with the State-owned enterprise.

The inspection system is an efficient mechanism that imposes discipline in the Party and was set in the Party's rules and regulations. Inspection teams, set up in 2003 by the CCDI and the CPC Central Committee Organization Department, are authorized to listen to government work reports, consult files and records and receive petitions and letters from the public reporting corruption. The Party also established the inspection mechanism for internal supervision in the same year.

At the end of February, the commission began its first round of disciplinary inspections this year targeting on 26 SOEs, which led to about 20 top SOE managers being held on corruption charges.

A second round of inspections of 26 State-run entities - 17 of which are SOEs - started in June.

As of Oct 31, nearly 139,000 government officials and functionaries had been punished for violations of Party rules in the anti-graft campaign and call for austerity three years ago.

Contact the writer at zhang_yi@chinadaily.com.cn

zhang_yi@chinadaily.com.cn