Buying and selling government jobs has become one of the main causes of government corruption in China, says a former head of the CPC’s organization department.
Zhang Quanjing (张全景), who headed the department for five years until 1999, says some people will stop at nothing, including murder, to move up the ladder.
“It’s appalling to hear that a Chinese official killed his superior in order to get a higher post,” Zhang told the Southern Weekly this week. [Full Text]
– In the Chinese story on People’s Daily Online, Zhang opens his own journal for a Nanfang Weekend reporter, revealing the following:
From Oct. 1992 to Nov. 2002, the Central Discipline Committee opened 1.66 million party cadre corruption cases, with 1.58 million of those cases closed, punishing 1.59 million cadres, among whom 51,917 were county-level officials, over 4,000 city-level officials (厅局级), and 123 provincial- or minister-level officials (省部级).
“Party secretaries are number one bosses and rise above everything else, which is abnormal,” Zhang says. He suggested to the central government in 1993, when he was vice minister of the Central Organizational Ministry (‰∏≠ÁªÑÈÉ®), that special attention should be paid to the monitoring of two 30s, i.e. 30 provincial party secretaries and 30 provincial governors.
“I don’t recall any one corrupt ministry- or provincial-level official during the 30-year period from 1949 to the opening-up, but the current seriousness of corruption mainly results from the pursuit of personal interests and lack of supervision in the tide of market economy.”
Zhang also tried to cut down on local bureaucracy–most local administrations having a dozen or more deputies under the party secretary and governor–but to no avail.
– Also CDT’s China has too many officials