More people are reporting the misdeeds of high officials
following investigation into the misappropriation of 3.7 billion
yuan from the city's social security fund, the Shanghai People's
Prosecutors' Office said.
Yan Yukang, director of the office's Offense Reporting Center,
said prosecutors are receiving fewer tip-offs on divisional head
officials, and more on those of department heads or above.
Tip-offs on corruption involving high level officials last year
showed a 9 percent increase over the year before. In the first
three months of this year it was 16 percent higher
year-on-year.
Most of the tip-offs concerned officials in charge of
outsourcing, fee collection and construction.
No details on individual cases have been released as most are
still under investigation.
Yan said the determination to fight corruption that the central
government had shown in investigating the social security fund
scandal, had contributed immensely to the increase in tip-offs.
The scandal, discovered last September, led to the sacking and
arrest of a dozen senior officials, including the former Shanghai
Party secretary Chen Liangyu.
Yan appealed for more members of the public to come forward to
help in the fight against corruption.
From June last year to the end of last month, prosecutors'
offices in Shanghai had investigated 470 people involved in 419
cases, 133 cases were from tip-offs involving 151 people.
"We hope more people can report cases that can be traced," Yan
said.
"Clues and details informants think are unimportant can be vital
to our investigations.
"Informants can simply leave us a telephone number or clues to
an alleged offense if he or she does not wish to be identified.
"We have strict rules on protecting informants."
To encourage more tip-offs on corruption, all prosecutors'
offices have raised rewards. In Shanghai, informants can now
receive a maximum of 10,000 yuan.
(China Daily June 14, 2007)