Commission gets a dozen new ‘weapons’ to bust graft

Beijing: As China’s national supervision commission is expected to be established at the first session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) in March, graft busters have been polishing new “weapons” to enhance their role.

The recent case of an official in north China’s Shanxi province caught the eyes of many.

He took advantage of his post to seek interests for others, and had his wife transfer his illicit assets to conceal bribery.

After asking the official the whereabouts of his illegal assets, the provincial supervision commission immediately seized the elicit properties.

“Someone was trying to make further transfers when we got to the place where the assets were, which could have caused big trouble for our investigation,” a graft buster in Shanxi said.

Seizing assets is one of the 12 major “weapons” used to effectively crack down on corruption.

The others include talking, interrogation, questioning, inquiries, freezes, acquisitions, closing down, seizures, searches, inspections, examination and detention.

Some of the “weapons” have proved effective for supervisory commissions in Beijing, Shanxi and the eastern Zhejiang province, the three pilots for the ongoing reform, where supervision commissions were granted more power to use the new methods.

Submitted to the bi-monthly legislative session of the Standing Committee of the NPC for a second reading in December, the draft national supervision law made clear regulations on forming supervisory organs, responsibilities and powers as well as investigation methods to ensure organs act in accordance with the law.

“Now we can directly resort to some of the measures,” said Rui Chenwen, an official at Shanxi’s supervision commission, hailing the efficiency of their approach.

“In the past those measures would require the assistance of judicial organs like police departments and procuratorates,” he said.