Mayor Han Zheng yesterday pledged to build a more transparent and credible administration after admitting that malpractices in combating unlicensed taxis had severely dampened the public's trust in the government.

Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng delivers a speech at the opening ceremony of the third session of the 13th Shanghai Municipal People's Congress on January 26, 2010.

"We must face public concerns and media inquiries over our inadequacies, and take the initiative to improve through effective and practical measures in order to build a just and corruption-free government," he said in his government report to the annual municipal people's congress that opened yesterday.

Han said the government would publicize information directly related to the interests of the people and standardize administrative enforcement by defining enforcement bodies, improving accountability systems and disclosing administrative penalties.

"We'll make public administrative fines and confiscations and manage them on a centralized platform, and prevent them from being used for the interests of related government departments," he said.

In a crackdown of unlicensed taxis that started around the year 2000, the Shanghai traffic law enforcement bureau seized approximately 50,000 illegal taxi drivers every year. Each was fined 2,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan ($300-$7,400).

But there had been no information available on how the money had been utilized, which critics said was a show of power abuse among local traffic law enforcement authorities.