An unprecedented reward of 100,000 yuan (US$12,000) is now being offered to those Beijing residents who volunteer information on corrupt officials, the Beijing Municipal People's Procuratorate announced.

Sources with the procuratorate of the capital city said the reward is likely to be given to those who provide help to public procurators during investigation procedures.

The reward is the highest in the country, sources with the Supreme People's Procuratorate were quoted by the Beijing News as saying.

Rewards to people that report corruption will be even higher than 100,000 yuan (US$12,000) if the cases are decided to be influential enough, and over 95 per cent of economic loss is saved, sources said.

The reward will be given to informers in private, unless they are willing to make it known.

The local procuratorate also vowed to keep secret the names of people who report corruption.

The move is to encourage more people to get involved in the fight against corruption.

In the past, the highest reward offered by the Beijing Municipal People's Procuratorate was 10,000 yuan (US$1,200), sources said.

The increase was made in accordance with the increase in money that current corruption cases involve, sources with the local procuratorate said.

On most occasions, rewards of 2 per cent to 3 per cent of the embezzled figure will be offered to people who helped lead authorities to the corruption.

Economic losses that are saved will also be taken into consideration when offering rewards to informers.

In June, the No 2 Branch of the Beijing Municipal People's Procuratorate offered a reward of 30,000 yuan (US$3,600) which was a rare sum before the onset of the new policy.

Meanwhile, Zhang Huirong, an official with the municipal procuratorate encouraged more signed reports from concerned citizens.

Currently, most reports from residents are unsigned for safety reasons, a procuratorate source said.

Zhang said a strict management system has been established to ensure the secrecy of the reports.

"For online reporting, a password is given that's known only to the person reporting, even the chief procurator has no idea who reports," Zhang said.

In another effort to remedy the abuse of power by government officials, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Finance has begun to fix the issue of officials funneling public capital to relatives.

More than 200 municipal-level government organs, as well as 18 district and county governments reported such incidents to the municipal finance bureau.

Public funds lent to relatives of government officials are required to be returned within a certain period.

(China Daily September 16, 2004)