BEIJING, Oct 23 (Reuters) - The wealthy southern
Chinese province of Guangdong plans to ban officials from senior or
sensitive government positions if they have spouses or children living
overseas as part of a corruption crackdown, a state-run newspaper said
on Thursday.
This year Guangdong announced that more than 850 government
workers with family overseas, who are known as "naked officials", had
been forced out of their jobs.
Naked officials are viewed by the government as flight risks
whose ability to escape overseas to join family members could make them
more inclined to engage in acts of corruption.
President Xi Jinping last year launched a sweeping crackdown
on pervasive corruption over concern about public resentment towards
China's stability-obsessed ruling Communist Party.
Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong, has traditionally seen
high levels of emigration with communities of people with roots there
scattered throughout the world, and so has been a focus of the push
against naked officials.
The province's new rules will ban such officials from
"playing leading roles in government departments, government
institutions, people's organisations and state-owned and state-held
enterprises", the official China Daily reported.
They will not be allowed to work in important or sensitive
jobs, including those related to security, finance, financial regulator,
human resources or accounting, it added.
"Anyone considered for promotion to a leading post will have
to truthfully report their marriage, house property, personal
investment and debt, self-discipline records and the jobs of their
children and spouses," the newspaper said.
The rules are included in the province's graft-fighting
plan, an outline of which was released this week, it added. The paper
did not say when the measures might be implemented.
Many officials have been taking advantage of a Hong Kong
investment scheme to squirrel away more than $1 million each, which
includes buying "residency" in faraway African nations, as the scheme is
not open to mainland Chinese residents, state media has reported.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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