Fight the hydra of corruption

The issue of corruption is always eye-catching. In recent years, environmental administration has become a new field of corruption. Along with the intensified emphasis on environmental issues by the Chinese government, the power of the administration, too, has expanded. Now all important projects have to pass environmental tests, endowing the administration with veto power.

Hence, environmental examination has become a scarce power resource. The scarcer the power resource is, the more the likelihood of corruption. Since the administration possesses the scarce power, everyone who wants to start a project has to beseech them to approve it. Many businessmen are then willing to bribe the administration into giving approval. Thus corruption has become rife in this field.

To curb corruption in this field, the best way is openness in information. The relevant information of the process, outcome and participants of environmental examinations must be released, so that third-party experts can inspect them and report the irregularities. The government should not allow the environmental agencies that are organizationally linked to the environmental administration to undertake environmental examinations. A proper solution is to set up a professional environmental evaluation agency constituted by experts outside the government, which would be commissioned to conduct the environmental examinations.