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Tighten checks on the corrupt

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-03 07:41

The inspection and supervision over officials is seriously non-functional in some parts of China, leading to the failure of spotting corrupt officials in time, says an article on the website of Xinhua News Agency. The following is an excerpt:

The former Party secretary of a district in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, dubbed by locals as "the most dissipated and shameless district Party secretary", was recently charged with taking bribes of almost 3 million yuan.

According to media reports, Dong had led an extremely corrupt life, having multiple mistresses, some of whom even have children with Dong.

The irony is that it is Dong's wife and a local university professor first exposed the corrupt life of Dong Feng on the Internet.

The local discipline and prosecution departments have failed to be the first to reveal Dong's corruption, allowing it to last for more than a decade. People are wondering whether local inspection departments should be held accountable for their dereliction of duty.

It's quite common now that even though some corrupt officials have already angered the locals with their decadent lifestyles, local discipline and prosecution departments have seldom been the first to expose them. With the absence of efficient inspection and supervision over officials, some corrupt ones even got promoted.

(China Daily 12/03/2008 page8)