China adds discipline investigators to fight graft

China's top discipline inspection agency has added about 100 investigators to better fight corruption, said a senior official here on Tuesday.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has increased its investigative divisions from eight to 12 since the current Party leadership took office in November 2012, said Zhang Jinan, member of the CCDI Standing Committee, during an online press conference on the agency's website.

The number of investigators, who directly handle corruption cases, has accounted for almost 70 percent of the agency's total staff, Zhang said.

In China, most corruption cases involving Party and government officials are firstly investigated by discipline inspection agencies to examine whether Party rules have been violated. Cases will be passed over to prosecutors if laws are broken.

The CCDI handles cases involving high-profile officials, such as Bo Xilai, former party chief of Chongqing Municipality and former member of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau. Its local branches take charge of less prominent officials accordingly.

Since November 2012, the CCDI has gone through two rounds of restructuring to sharpen its supervision and investigation arms, according to Zhang.

"The agency is in great need of reforming itself and allocating more resources to fight corruption and clean up the Party," Zhang said.

Besides increasing staff numbers, the CCDI has also set up an internal affairs division to supervise its own investigators.

The country is going through a large-scale anti-corruption campaign. According to the CCDI, 31 high-profile officials were investigated by the commission last year and 182,000 officials were punished nationwide, 13.3 percent more than in 2012.

The momentum has continued this year with a dozen of provincial and ministerial officials investigated. The latest ones included Yao Mugen, vice governor of east China's Jiangxfight grafti province, and Shen Peiping, vice governor of southwest China's Yunnan Province.