Officials’ financial information goes online, then deleted

The Commission for Discipline Inspection of Jiangsu Province's Guanyun county deleted the financial information of 33 lower-level officials from its website, some two months after it was pasted.

The Global Times reported earlier this week that the disclosed information included government staffers' household income, real estate ownership and auto debts.

The posting showed that most of the officials, such as the county deputy police chief and a town's mayor, had household income of less than 100,000 yuan ($16,080) a year.

An official surnamed Shi who works at the commission's administrative office told the China Youth Daily that the agency took down the information from the website because it was originally only supposed to be online for two months, not because of pressure from the public.

"Any new thing has to go through a process of exploration and growth until it reaches full maturity," Shi said. "I've heard many different voices, but none of them was so harsh that could be considered criticism."

Lin Zhe, an expert on anti-corruption at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, told the Global Times that there is no need for the public to be upset about the deletion since it is understandable.

"It might cause harm to the officials' financial safety if the information is left online for too long," she said.

Disclosure of government staffers' household assets is an effective way to root out corruption only when the measure is implemented in the right way, said Lin.

"Making the financial information public is the most important and efficient way to fight corruption only when it is revealed from top to bottom," Lin said.

Lin said she expected to see the financial information of top leaders being disclosed first, which should be followed by the province-level leaders and further down.

To make the system accomplish its goal, citizens have to be able to make comments regarding the government leaders' income, Lin said.

"The public needs to have the right to make private and real-name reports to the inspection commission about their dissatisfaction or concerns over officials' earnings," she told the Global Times on Thursday.