Computer software commissioned by Zhuhai city government to issue alerts on malpractice in government-invested projects will be promoted in other parts of Guangdong province as a measure to prevent corruption.

In the past year, the software system has issued 205 alerts in monitoring 225 government-funded projects involving a total investment of about 30 billion yuan ($4.9 billion), said Wang Yanshi, head of the Party discipline inspection commission of Zhuhai, at a recent seminar in the city.

It has also provided 25 indications of possible corruption of which 11 have been subjected to investigation.

Government-invested projects have been rife with corruption. Cases involving projects and construction account for 25 percent of duty-related criminal cases solved nationwide since 2010, Wang said.

Corruption in such projects is hard to detect, given the multiple government departments and other players involved and the inadequacy of manual monitoring, he said.

In a period of rapid development, the governments at various levels in Zhuhai invest about 25 billion yuan in infrastructure every year.

The system used in Zhuhai consists of 30 indices covering the process from the project approval to acceptance.

It has greatly elevated the chance of detecting malpractice and cut the cost of monitoring, said Liu Zhiming, a professor with the School of Economics and Management of South China Normal University in Guangzhou.

He suggested that the system should be integrated with the negative list and power list filed by the government, as the administrative approval reform continues.

The Guangdong Party discipline inspection commission intends to promote the system across the province, with the cities of Guangzhou and Shanwei already adopting the system for monitoring major projects.

Corruption happens mostly at the bidding and building stages. The system in Zhuhai monitors the bidding stage properly but remains weak in overseeing the building process, said Ren Jianming, director of the Clean Governance Research and Education Center at Beihang University in Beijing.

Corruption in government-funded projects is rooted in a lack of transparency and problems in decision-making. The system in Zhuhai helps improve transparency, said Zhang Jingen, a professor with the center for anti-corruption studies at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, adding the government should include the opinions of professionals in decision-making in the future.

liwenfang@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 10/21/2014 page5)