The Chinese Communist Party Central Commission for Discipline
Inspection issued a bulletin on its just-concluded meeting on
Tuesday, making public its major anti-corruption tasks for
2004.
According to the bulletin, the Third Plenary Session of the
Party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection held from
Jan.11-13 in Beijing formulated a list of priority tasks on the
fight against corruption, and ways to improve the style of work of
the Party this year.
The bulletin says the Party will step up its ideological,
ethical and discipline education to ensure Party and government
officials abide by its disciplines.
The Party will beef up its efforts in investigating and handling
major and important corruption cases, and continue to give priority
to those involving leading officials at or above county levels who
violate the Party's political disciplines, or who are corrupt, take
bribes, and embezzle public money, according to the bulletin.
The commission will focus attention on cases involving
construction projects, transfer of land-use rights, financial
sector and procurement, restructuring and regrouping of state-owned
firms that lead to severe loss of state-owned assets, and leading
officials and law enforcement officers.
In order to protect the legitimate interests of the
disadvantaged rural and urban residents, the commission said in the
bulletin it will make greater efforts to fight such irregularities
as illegal use of farmland for commercial development, delayed
payment of compensation fees to farmers for permanent use of their
land, or failure to compensate the farmers in part or in full.
The bulletin goes on to say that the Party will also give
priority to such cases as infringement on the legitimate interests
of urban residents in resettlement projects, employees of the
enterprises facing restructuring or bankruptcy, and migrant workers
whose employers delay payment of their wages in part or in
full.
The Party will continue to crack down on excessive fee charges
by government departments or government institutions in various
sectors, according to the bulletin.
The Party will introduce step by step secret balloting in
appointing or dismissing major officials, and a tenure system for
leading Party and government officials.
During his Monday address to the session, Hu Jintao, general
secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
(CPC), said China would continue its fight against corruption and
improve the Party's style of work, while improving inner-Party
supervision of leading Party officials.
Hu, also president of the People's Republic of China, promised
that the Party will investigate and punish whoever is found guilty
of corruption, saying the Party shall never be appeasing any
corrupt officials, or be soft-hearted toward them.
Hu said the Party will improve supervision of leading Party and
government officials at various levels through the supervision of
the Party, government departments, the general public, the mass
media and other ways.
(Xinhua News Agency January 13, 2004)