The Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Personnel is drafting a new and detailed regulation to help standardize the resignation of civil servants. The new regulation is part of the province's contribution to the nationwide battle against corruption.

Former officials will be prohibited from accepting positions in businesses where they can take advantage of their government connections for three years after they have left their government posts.

The new regulation is expected to come into effect in the second half of 2005 if the Provincial People's Congress approves it by early next year.

An official from the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Personnel said the new regulation is aimed at preventing corruption in the prosperous province where development of the market economy is advanced.

The decision to draw up the new regulation came after a spate of complaints from local People's Congress deputies and members of the Provincial People's Political Consultative Conference.

They frequently asked why so many civil servants had recently resigned, according to the personnel official.

Increasing numbers of graduates in the province are attracted to a career in the civil service, which offers them good conditions, benefits, good promotion prospects and the chance to study abroad.

Yang Jianyou, a deputy to the Guangdong Provincial People's Congress, said that the growing number of civil servants who resigned to work in the local private sector looked suspicious.

Many new opportunities for corruption exist, warned Yang, who posits that senior officials who refuse to take bribes while in office may have been offered a highly paid post to grant a project to a contractor illegally.

Yang urged all departments of the government to standardize the resignation of local civil servants and stamp out corruption.

Many civil officials, including some senior ones, have resigned to work in the local private sector in Guangdong in recent years.

Jiang Chongzhou, former director of the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Environmental Protection, resigned to become the vice general manager of a local property company in August 2003.

In March 2002, Liu Zhihang, former executive director of the Shunde District of Foshan, also resigned. Liu, who was also once the director of the Shunde District Bureau of Finance, was immediately appointed vice president of Shunde Midea Holding Company, a company listed on the Shenzhen stock exchange and a leading home appliance maker.

Jiang and Liu are estimated to be earning more than 1 million yuan (US$120,000) a year, more than 10 times their original annual income.

(China Daily August 16, 2004)