More Effort Needed to Fight Corruption: Commentary

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, July 17, 2003

More Effort Needed to Fight Corruption: Commentary

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Discipline inspectors in Beijing are to talk to all newly appointed or elected officials in Communist Party and government departments, urging them to be clean and honest in their work, under revised anti-corruption guidelines.

Officials who have committed minor improprieties will be admonished, under an interim regulation issued by the Beijing Municipal Discipline Inspection Commission.

Such measures are aimed at nipping the evil in the bud, a lesson drawn from past failure.

China has reaped a lot from its anti-corruption crusades of recent years, catching some high-ranking officials.

But, by tracing the fall of corrupt officials, we find that one of our failures has been not able to detect and contain their wrong-doing at an early stage. With their initial misdeeds going unchecked, those corrupt officials, whose malpractice might otherwise have been contained, went inexorably down the road to doom.

By strengthening internal supervision, the new mechanism of admonition and of giving new officials advance warnings will play a part in curbing the growth of corruption.

However, this alone cannot guarantee clean government.

Some corrupt officials are often cunning at covering up their dirty deeds. For example, they often make inspiring speeches on different occasions, calling for tighter control on corruption while receiving bribes in secret.

They only pay lip service to the fight against corruption. The fall of several high-ranking officials in recent years exemplified this stark contrast between words and deeds.

Good at putting on a show, corrupt officials can often manage to deceive their seniors into believing their feigned innocence. In this situation, "clean talk" from the top will not work.

Past experience has shown many corruption cases have been uncovered thanks to information provided by the public or the media.

Therefore, while enhancing internal controls, policies should be devised to facilitate supervision by the media and the public.

Officials should be made more accountable to the public instead of only to their superiors. Government activities should be made more transparent. And the role of public opinion should be better respected.

Only by combining external and internal efforts can we win the war against the scourge of corruption. (China Daily News)

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