The Chinese capital promised to host a "clean" Olympics
Wednesday as its top official vowed to double anti-corruption
efforts on the preparations for the 2008 event.
"We must tighten auditing and monitoring efforts on the
preparatory work of the Olympics to prevent all potential
(corruption) problems," said Liu Qi, secretary of the Beijing Municipal
Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
Efforts must be made to ensure that staff members involved in
the Olympic preparations and venue construction projects remain on
track, Liu was quoted as saying by Wednesday's Beijing
Daily.
Liu, who is also chairman of the organizing committee of the
2008 Olympics, was speaking following an announcement by the CPC
Central Commission for Discipline Inspections of the expulsion of
former Beijing Vice Mayor Liu Zhihua from the Party.
Liu Zhihua, who had also been dismissed from all administrative
posts, was found to have taken millions of yuan in bribes by taking
advantage of his official position.
Liu Zhihua was elected vice mayor in 1999 in charge of
overseeing construction, real estate, sports and traffic projects
in the capital.
Liu Qi asked Beijing officials to draw lessons from Liu Zhihua's
case and remain sober-minded. He said the city will enhance
supervision of its officials in a bid to prevent power abuse and
unwise policy-making.
Supervision must be particularly strengthened for areas
frequently hit by corruption, such as promotion of officials,
allocation of fiscal funds, management of state assets, selling of
land use rights and licensing, Liu was quoted as saying.
He also required officials to stand firmly against corruption
and constantly combat corruption to ensure the city's economic,
political, cultural and social development and to realize the
target of a "clean" Olympics.
China has launched a huge corruption drive over the last few
years.
The sacking of Shanghai party chief Chen Liangyu last September
for alleged involvement in a social security fund scandal, has
become the country's highest-ranking official to fall in the latest
anti-corruption campaign.
Later, Qiu Xiaohua, head of the National Bureau of Statistics
was sacked for his suspected involvement in the 10 billion-yuan
(US$1.25 billion) Shanghai social security fund fraud.
The CPC announced earlier that 115,000 CPC members were
disciplined last year for various faults, accounting for 0.16
percent of the Party's total membership.
Among them, 11,071 members were expelled from the party, and
7,279 were transferred to judicial authorities for criminal
investigations.
(Xinhua News Agency December 14, 2006)