Four thousand corrupt Chinese officials flee abroad with fifty billion dollars: report
Agence France Presse, 19 August 2004
About 4,000 corrupt Chinese officials have fled overseas in the past two decades taking a staggering 50 billion dollars with them, official media reported Thursday.
Much of the money has been moved abroad through offshore financing centers, prompting Premier Wen Jiabao to order finance regulators to develop ways to deal with the problem, the Beijing's Evening Legal News said.
Experts said corrupt officials and some private firms were using companies registered in offshore finance centers such as the British Virgin Islands and the Bahamas to illegally transfer funds.
A joint task force is being set up by the central bank, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the China Banking Regulatory Commission and the China Securities Regulatory Commission to deal with the issue.
China is beset by corruption nationwide and it is consistently cited as one of the top causes of public discontent with the current political system.
While the central government has vowed to clamp down hard on the practices, a steady stream of graft reports in the official media suggests the problem remains serious.
In the latest attempt to combat the problem, China has set up public bank accounts so that corrupt officials can voluntarily return bribes they have pocketed in return for lighter punishment.
Accounts have so far been set up in six provinces and 20 cities, Xinhua news agency said Thursday, without naming the places or giving details about how successful the scheme has been.
The move follows a meeting of 70 experts who looked at ways to prevent graft through laws and amendments of current systems and regulations, said Wang Minggao, head of the research group that made the recommendation.
He said the group also proposed regulations to require government officials to register family possessions and use real names at banks to prevent money laundering.
The suggestions are all aimed at preventing corruption systematically rather than by the sporadic punishment of individuals, said Wang.
Copyright 2004 Agence France Presse
