'Clean pension' will not stop corruption

A clean governance allowance will only be effective on the basis of a comprehensive mechanism against corruption, and other supporting reforms, such as changes to the evaluation system, says an article in Beijing Youth Daily. Excerpts:

Recently, the State Council's Development Research Center released a series of reform policies, dubbed the "383" reform plan, which is expected to be submitted to the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee. One of the proposals in the plan, establishing a clean governance allowance, has sparked heated discussions.

A pension for clean governance will increase the risks of being corrupt because officials will only be able to claim this money after retirement if they are to be found to have no record of corruption throughout their careers.

With the public yet to have confidence in the crackdown on corruption, some argue that compared to the potential gray income they might get, the clean governance allowance is too little to act as a counterbalance to prevent corruptive behavior.

The public still holds the view that civil servants, albeit they earn mediocre salaries, already enjoy exclusive pensions, healthcare and welfare compared with other walks of life. So they argue that the clean governance allowance would be no more than a new way to increase public officials' welfare.

In fact, the gray incomes of public servants have been exaggerated by some people. In order to eliminate misunderstandings and to promote better communication between officials and the public, carrying out reforms to enforce officials to disclose their personal properties would be a better place to start.

(China Daily 11/06/2013 page9)