The new anti-corruption agency will have more power on a national scale because of an 200% increase in the volume of "hard work" (of cases). It will be able to investigate, interrogate, search, imprison and take disciplinary actions against cadres, state employees and businessmen.
Beijing (AsiaNews) - The new anti-corruption agency will have more funds, more staff, more prisons to handle a number of cases three times those it follows at present. This was assured by Minister of Supervision Yang Xiaodu said on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress in the Great Hall of the People.
The idea of a new anti-graft agency, the National Supervisory Commission, emerged at the Chinese Communist Party Congress last October to widen and strengthen the fight against the scourge that has always plagued the Party and Chinese society.
“The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and local commissions will have a 10 per cent increase in manpower [after the merger],” Yang said. “The targets have been increased by 200 per cent so, based on our experience, we know this is going to be a huge job.”
The national agency will oversee commissions around the country – at provincial, city and county levels – that will be able to investigate, question, search, detain and take disciplinary action against not just party cadres suspected of corruption but all civil servants. There is no information available on how many people are employed in China’s public service. The commissions will also have the power to investigate businesspeople suspected of graft.
The new anti-corruption structure seems to present a more scientific and more organized approach than the campaign launched by President Xi Jinping at the start of his first term in 2013. So far it has dismissed more than 250 senior Party members, punishing about 1.4 million party members.
According to many observers, the campaign has served to eliminate or oust many of Xi's opponents.