Across China: Database helps tackle corruption in poverty relief

Peng Qiongxian, a Communist Party of China (CPC) village chief, sneaked his son's family on to a list of households entitled to poverty relief funds thinking the anti-corruption watchdog would never find it.

But he was wrong.

A cluster of new databases set up earlier this year by disciplinary authorities in Shiyan City, central China's Hubei Province, put paid to Peng's underhand behavior.

Analysts also found that three other "poverty-stricken households" in Yueriwan, Peng's village, had used fake documents to obtain the status.

"Lax supervision prevents good policies from benefiting those in need," said Hu Chaowen, head of Shiyan CPC commission for discipline inspection.

China has the ambitious goal of lifting 55.75 million rural residents out of poverty by 2020. To achieve this, public funds have been allocated to provide living allowances, medical aid, and housing renovation subsidies.

A five-year campaign to eliminate corruption in poverty relief was launched this year to address the growing number of officials implicated in the misuse or embezzlement of funds.

Prosecutors investigated 658 officials responsible for poverty alleviation in the first five months of 2016, an increase of 53.7 percent year-on-year, according to statistics from the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Investigations by the procuratorate revealed that local-level officials were most likely to be involved in bribery, embezzlement, speculation and dereliction of duty.

The databases hold information on those responsible for poverty relief funds since 2014 and their background information, including family, as well as house and vehicle ownership. Previously, data was neither unified or available to all governmental organs.

The databases allow disciplinary staff to check whether funds were assigned to qualified receivers. There are also regulations in place that bans the relatives of governmental workers, or those who own an urban house or a car, from being classed as "those in need."

So far, the databases have helped uncover thousands of violations.

In Shiyan, a village committee returned over 6,000 yuan (870 U.S. dollars) in embezzled funds, which should have gone to villagers, to the state coffers.

Following the footsteps of Shiyan, other regions in Hubei have also rolled out their own systems to supervise poverty relief funds.

"'Big data' helps us find a way to strictly govern the Party, as our top leadership requires us to do," Hu said. Endi