Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Cracking Down... Sort of

The central government may be doling out cash to prevent China from falling into the doldrums, but it also has to make sure every yuan is properly used.

A few weeks ago the Beijing Municipal People's Procuratorate Office announced there were some 16,000 to 18,000 party officials who have fled the country since the 1990s, and taking with them some 800 billion RMB ($117 billion).

The money was misappropriated from projects like land development, tax revenue, loans from financial institutions, funds allocated for government expenditures and national economic programs.

And in the past 30 years, the Beijing Municipal People's Procuratorate has prosecuted over 16,000 cases of corruption and bribery.

Sounds like there's something chronically wrong with the system, don't you think?

2 comments:

ChopSuey said...

Any system entrenched that long is bound to incur corruption. No system is perfect, but at least with the turnover in democratic governments, the ordinary person has a chance every 4-8 years to be heard when the previous establishment exits.

Anonymous said...

B!

Take a look at this Beijing artist using a new medium to do old masters:

http://www.parisbeijingphotogallery.com/main/juduoqiworks.asp

T