10,300 probed in ongoing SOE corruption crackdown

Prosecutors nationwide are taking strong measures to curb the corruption that is plaguing State-owned enterprises, a senior anti-graft official from the Supreme People's Procuratorate said.

Figures provided by the procuratorate show that, since 2013, national prosecuting departments have investigated 10,303 officials and staff members over allegations of bribery and corruption in State-owned companies.

The number accounts for 21 percent of all cases of corruption that were investigated during the period.

Most of the suspects were senior managers who in some cases colluded with government officials to accept bribes, commit embezzlement or take State-owned assets.

"The cases mainly involved engineering projects, purchasing and sales, property management and international businesses," said Zhao Wu'an, a senior official at the SPP's corruption-prevention department.

"The fundamental solution is to promote modern enterprise management systems in State-owned companies, to separate politics from enterprises and to handle the relationship between political power and the allocation of resources properly," said Song Hansong, the department's director.

He said that to curb the rampant corruption, prosecutors have examined 100 major national engineering projects since 2013, most of which involved State-owned enterprises.

He called on watchdogs within the companies, such as inspectors, supervision boards and auditing departments, to carry out their duties thoroughly to prevent corrupt behavior by staff.

zhangyan1@chinadaily.com.cn