Disclose officials' real estate information

Officials' assets declarations should start by declaring their real estate information, says an article in the Beijing Youth Daily. Excerpts:

Recently there were several scandals exposed by the media that local officials with several hukou, or household registrations, owned several houses worth a huge amount of money.

The corrupt officials abused their power to amass great wealth, forged household registrations and then purchased several real estate properties.

For common people, urban hukou, which give access to public services and social welfare, are hard to obtain. But the corrupt officials can easily get illegal hukou and use them to hide their illegal properties. The cases show not only the loopholes of the household registration system but also social injustice, which should be seriously dealt with.

After the new central leadership took office, anti-corruption measures have been frequently mentioned as a significant and urgent task.

A declaration system for officials' assets is regarded as an effective measure to curb corruption, and real estate declarations are recommended by experts as the best breakthrough point.

In the past 10 years, the price of urban houses has increased six times on average, and many "smart" corrupt officials have turned their money into real estate to maintain and increase the value of their illegal wealth.

Officials' real state information is a key indicator to test whether an official is corrupt or not. More importantly, China has established a comparatively sound real estate information management system and it's not difficult to disclose officials' real estate information using technology.

The key to fight corruption is action.