New app to report official corruption

A smartphone application designed to prevent dereliction of duty and corruption among government officials was launched by the prosecutor's office in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality on Wednesday.

The app, titled "Stay away from duty-related crimes," is available for download on both iOS and Android systems. With one touch of the screen, users can directly dial the city's prosecutor's office or log onto the prosecutor's office website to report a dereliction of duty or corruption case.

"This app makes the procedure easier for people to report crimes. The main purpose for us to launch this app is to remind government officials that they are being supervised, and it is not a good idea to trade their power for cash," an anonymous official from the Chongqing People's Procuratorate First Branch told the Global Times.

The app also offers electronic versions of two brochures that give readers tips on how to differentiate the behaviors of dereliction of duty from corruption and how to prevent both.

New functions are waiting to be added into the app, said the official.

"It is an inventive idea that prosecutors try to fight corruption with technology. However, the app needs to provide more information on the knowledge of law and what punishment officials will face if they behave inappropriately," Wang Minggao, an anti-graft scholar with Hunan Business College, told the Global Times.

In the first half of 2013, China's prosecutorial agencies investigated 250 officials at county level or above on suspicion of crimes relating to dereliction of duty and infringement of rights, according to a Supreme People's Procuratorate report on Thursday.

A total of 8,048 government officials were investigated and 5,706 cases have been built, of which 3,272 were serious violations, said the report.

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