China's inspection teams overseeing local officials

Ten inspection teams dispatched by China's central authorities to oversee local officials have all arrived at relevant regions and organizations and started work, authorities announced on Monday.

Visits by inspection teams will last around two months and teams' contact information has been publicized to seek public tip-offs, the office of the leading group for China's inspection work said in a statement.

As part of the country's intensified anti-corruption efforts, the routine visits by inspection teams to oversee local officials will this year focus on uncovering corruption, according to a meeting held last month to mobilize and train inspectors.

Five provincial-level localities, namely Inner Mongolia, Jiangxi, Hubei, Chongqing and Guizhou, as well as a ministry, three state-owned enterprises and a university, will have been inspected during the first half of the year.

Addressing the meeting on May 17, China's top anti-graft official Wang Qishan said inspectors should focus on detecting malpractice such as trading power for money, abusing power for personal interests, bribery and work styles including formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance.

They should also look for breaches of Party political disciplines and corruption related to officials' selection and promotion, said Wang, who is secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

The CPC began routinely sending out the teams to oversee officials' performance in 2003, formally writing the practice into the Party's Constitution five years later.