On November 5, the China Discipline Inspection and Supervision News published an article titled "Wuhu, Anhui Deepens Special Rectification of Corruption in the Field of Engineering Bidding and Tendering — Promoting the Creation of a Fair-Competition Market Environment," focusing on how the Wuhu Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision, through deepening special rectification in the field of engineering construction bidding and tendering, strives to eliminate entrenched corruption and promote a fair and transparent market environment. The full text is reproduced below.

Wuhu, Anhui Deepens Special Rectification of Corruption in the Field of Engineering Bidding and Tendering to Promote the Creation of a Fair-Competition Market Environment

Wuhu is a sub-central city of Anhui Province and its second-largest economy, with an active market economy and a large volume of engineering construction bidding and tendering. In response to prominent problems in the field of engineering construction bidding and tendering, the Wuhu Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision takes special rectification as the key lever, concentrating forces and efforts to integrate strict "punishment," precise "governance," and effective "prevention," strictly investigating and rectifying corruption in engineering construction bidding and tendering, helping to create a high-quality, efficient, standardized, fair, and transparent market environment, and safeguarding high-quality economic and social development.

Rationalizing Mechanisms, Tightening Responsibilities, and Advancing Special Rectification in a Standardized and Normative Manner

On an autumn day, cargo ships entering and leaving Wuhu Port shuttle busily along the Yangtze River channel. Across from the port, a batch of people's city construction projects — including the Huisheng Lianwei Ecological Construction Project and the Wuwei Dike Ecological Corridor Construction Project — are under urgent construction.

"May I ask whether the project is progressing smoothly now?" "How is the integrity risk prevention and control system for bidding and tendering implemented?" At the construction site of the Wuwei Dike Ecological Corridor Construction Project, when the reporter met Ban Wei, deputy director of the Wuhu Municipal Special Rectification Task Force for Corruption in the Field of Engineering Construction Bidding and Tendering, he and his colleagues were learning about the rectification of problems from the head of a local state-owned enterprise responsible for project construction.

Previously, multiple leading cadres and staff members of this enterprise "lived off the forest they managed," providing assistance to relevant enterprises and individuals in greening projects such as engineering construction, seedling procurement, and inquiry-based bidding, and accepting bribes; they were dealt with severely.

Discipline inspection and supervision organs of Wuhu, Anhui strengthen supervision focused on key projects to promote effective industry governance. The photo shows discipline inspection and supervision cadres of the city conducting supervision and inspection on the front lines of engineering projects.

Establishing a "task force + specialized groups" for special rectification is an important approach by the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision in advancing special rectification of corruption in engineering construction bidding and tendering. "The task force is responsible for overall coordination and scheduling, while the specialized groups are responsible for supervising and guiding case investigation, and taking the lead in handling key cases. The task force advances work by issuing reminder notices, compiling special bulletins, and conducting on-site supervision, so as to tighten and solidify the main responsibility for special rectification," Ban Wei said.

It is understood that last year the city's public resource trading platform completed more than 6,000 projects in total, including engineering construction and land transfer, with a transaction amount exceeding 100 billion yuan. In accordance with the work deployment of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision, in August last year Wuhu launched a pilot special rectification of corruption in engineering construction bidding and tendering, and in February this year formally launched a one-year special rectification.

During the special rectification, the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision took the lead in overall planning, formulated a work plan, drew a roadmap, set a timetable, and advanced the special rectification in a standardized and normative manner by stages and tasks, establishing four ledgers: "project baseline, self-examination and self-correction, clues and cases, and institution building."

In view of the characteristics of the engineering construction bidding and tendering field — many entities, many links, and strong professionalism and policy orientation — the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision adhered to a "one chessboard" approach, joining forces with 17 member units including inspection, audit, public security, and public management to establish a leading group for special rectification, with the principal responsible person of the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision serving as its head. It established working mechanisms such as information reporting, coordination and linkage, and consultation on major cases, linking upper and lower levels and coordinating left and right, promoting through collaboration among all departments and units, pooling the synergy of rectification, and correcting entrenched chronic problems. At the same time, under the leadership of the leading group for special rectification, a "task force + specialized groups" for special rectification was established, with weekly scheduling and dual-track advancement, tightening the chain of responsibility and forming a work pattern in which main responsibility, regulatory responsibility, and direct responsibility are implemented as one.

Under the urging and promotion of the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision, the Municipal Public Resource Trading Supervision and Administration Bureau organized and carried out seven major actions — including rectification of prominent problems in engineering construction bidding and tendering and rectification of prominent problems in transaction supervision — targeting key links before, during, and after bidding, striving to standardize market conduct in bidding and tendering; the commissions for discipline inspection and supervision of each county (city, district) formulated detailed special rectification plans in light of actual conditions, enhancing the pertinence and effectiveness of special rectification.

"At present, Wuhu is in a critical period of leapfrog development and ascent. A number of landmark industry-city projects — such as the new energy vehicle and intelligent connected vehicle industry cluster and the modern logistics hub — are being advanced. We take the carrying out of special rectification as an opportunity to work in concert, continuously purify the political ecosystem, and continuously optimize the business environment," introduced Wu Zulu, member of the Standing Committee of the Municipal Party Committee and secretary of the Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and director of the Supervisory Commission. The municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision takes housing and urban-rural development, transportation, agriculture, and water conservancy as the focus of rectification, focusing on 10 aspects including the implementation of laws and regulations on bidding and tendering and the implementation of the collective decision-making system for "major matters, important personnel appointments, major project arrangements, and large-sum fund use," continuously punishing problems such as collusion between insiders and outsiders, malpractice for personal gain, interference, black-box operations, rent-setting and rent-seeking, and benefit transfer, and integrating special rectification into routine supervision and inspection, drawing on specialized forces at appropriate times to thoroughly investigate and correct problems such as inadequate implementation of main responsibilities and supervisory responsibilities and the formalism and bureaucracy existing in advancing special rectification, urging the principal responsible persons of each lead unit to consciously shoulder their main responsibilities and pushing special rectification to go deeper and become more substantive.

Strengthening Integration and Coordination, Adhering to Case Handling as the Guide, and Striking Hard to Punish Entrenched Chronic Problems

"Xu Xiaoming, former Party secretary and director of the Municipal Transportation Bureau, was expelled from the Party and dismissed from public office for serious violations of discipline and law." "Fan Dajin, former Party secretary and director of the WanZhi District Emergency Management Bureau, was expelled from the Party and dismissed from public office for serious violations of discipline and law." In recent days, the Wuhu Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision has announced the handling of multiple cases of violations of discipline and law.

"Judging from the cases investigated, corruption in the field of engineering construction bidding and tendering often involves communities of interest; illegal and criminal acts and the problems of bribery and offering bribes are often intertwined, and the methods are increasingly concealed and diverse, making it difficult to discover clues to problems," introduced a relevant responsible person of the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision. Focusing on case investigation, the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision adhered to systematic thinking and ran the mining of clues and the investigation of cases through the entire process of special rectification. On the one hand, it implemented leadership responsibility for key cases, supervising them under挂牌 (listing and supervising) or handling major problem clues at a higher level or through cross-handling. On the other hand, it promoted the integration and coordination of various types of supervision, making good use of mechanisms such as regional collaboration and joint case handling by "departments, groups, and localities," and leveraging the "Wu Xia" collusive bidding crime analysis model to promote the investigation of a number of major cases and form a strong deterrent.

The Wuhu Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision in Anhui adheres to systematic thinking and runs the mining of clues and the investigation of cases through the entire process of special rectification of corruption in engineering construction bidding and tendering. The photo shows the city's special rectification task force analyzing and discussing case details. Photo by Huang Yunyun

At the beginning of the special rectification, on the basis of urging member units to conduct self-examination and self-correction, the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision organized specialized forces to comprehensively uncover and re-screen problem clues in the field of engineering construction bidding and tendering discovered since 2017 by discipline inspection and supervision organs, inspection bodies, audit departments, and judicial and law enforcement departments and units, analyzing them one by one and paying attention to discovering problems therein.

During the special rectification, the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision actively integrated forces and connected every link — problem discovery, transfer for handling, feedback of results, and implementation of rectification. For example, when investigating clues concerning Yang, legal representative of a certain construction company in Anhui, the specialized group coordinated the Nanling County Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision and the Yijiang District Public Security Sub-bureau to investigate jointly; with close cooperation and overall advancement, they quickly ascertained that Yang was suspected of the crime of contract fraud and of channeling benefits to multiple public officials and employees of social intermediary agencies.

In view of the characteristics of the engineering bidding and tendering field — large amounts of inspection data, many materials, and scattered sites — the city's inspection bodies built a "special inspection information data model for the engineering bidding and tendering field" for rapid screening, striving to discover problems in the processes of project approval, pre-bid argumentation, release of bidding documents, bid evaluation, bid award, contract signing, on-site management, completion acceptance, payment of project funds, and operation and maintenance.

"We also specially established a special inspection and audit team, drawing professional auditors proficient in engineering construction cost and supervision from audit departments, and selected key units such as the Municipal Transportation Bureau, the Municipal Water Affairs Bureau, and the Municipal Key Engineering Construction Management Office to carry out special inspection and audit, discovering more than 70 problem clues in total, which were transferred to discipline inspection and supervision organs for follow-up handling," said the responsible person of the Second Inspection Group of the Municipal Party Committee.

In addition, the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision focused on digging deep into "cases within cases." When the special work group was scheduling the Wuwei Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision's investigation of a suspected duty crime case involving Si, former deputy director of the Municipal Landscape Management Office, it discovered that the person involved, Zhang, had undertaken a large number of greening and maintenance projects at the Municipal Landscape Management Office and had also engaged in illegal and irregular acts such as affiliated bidding. The municipal special work group organized elite forces to break through the case, and with the collaboration and cooperation of multiple departments, quickly ascertained the relevant problems.

It is reported that since the special rectification began, the city's discipline inspection and supervision organs have handled 241 problem clues in the field of engineering construction bidding and tendering, filed 122 cases, placed 25 persons under lien (liuzhi), transferred 17 persons to judicial organs, and recovered more than 30 million yuan in illicit gains and losses.

Deepening Source Governance, Strengthening Integrity Risk Prevention and Control, and Promoting the Normalization and Long-Term Effectiveness of Preventing and Governing Corruption

"It is suggested to further strengthen technological empowerment, combine it with the construction of a big data platform for grassroots public power, identify common problems, and deepen both symptomatic and root-cause treatment..." "It is suggested to further expand linkage forms such as discipline inspection, inspection, and audit, and improve the ability to find problems from large amounts of information..." A few days ago, Wang Chengquan, deputy secretary of the Wuhu Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and deputy director of the Supervisory Commission, held a discussion with relevant responsible persons of member units of special rectification, deeply analyzing risk points and listening to opinions and suggestions on deepening source governance.

Special rectification requires both powerful medicine to cure serious ills and concentrated assault, as well as consolidating achievements and eradicating the source of the disease. The city's discipline inspection and supervision organs adhered to the integrated advancement of investigating problems, urging rectification, and promoting governance, strengthening analysis and research on common problems found in special rectification, and promoting relevant entities to improve bidding and tendering-related systems, strengthen prevention at the source, and plug institutional loopholes.

"The following discipline inspection recommendations are hereby put forward to your unit (Party organization): you must truly take the case as a warning, dig deep into the ideological roots, strengthen discipline education, strictly manage content, and standardize work processes..." In response to violations of discipline and law by multiple leading cadres of a subordinate enterprise of a certain unit, the Jiujiang District Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision issued discipline inspection recommendations, urging the improvement of systems and the strengthening of management and supervision of state-owned enterprises.

In light of the problems exposed by the cases investigated, the city's discipline inspection and supervision organs, on the basis of deeply carrying out "four talks on cases" — talking about virtue, discipline, law, and responsibility through cases — comprehensively used methods such as issuing special inspection reports, discipline inspection and supervision recommendations, reminder letters, and typical case analysis reports to analyze the patterns of case occurrence, accurately identify problems, clarify the crux, propose industry governance measures, and urge relevant departments such as public management and public security to issue, around strengthening supervision, clue transfer, and joint crackdowns, provisions such as a collaborative mechanism for jointly combating bid rigging, a problem clue transfer mechanism, and measures for supervising key links of government investment projects, and to promote relevant departments to revise and improve a batch of bidding and tendering normative documents covering fields such as housing construction and municipal engineering, rail transit, and farmland water conservancy.

For example, the Nanling County Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision, in conjunction with case investigation, sorted out weak links in work and institutional loopholes, and guided and promoted departments and units such as the County Public Management Bureau and the County Engineering Construction Management Office to improve and issue 12 rules and regulations, including a system for recording, reporting, and accountability for打招呼 (intercessions), pleadings, and interference that disrupt bidding and tendering work, and measures for the supervision and administration of public resource trading.

To further deepen source governance, the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision assisted the Municipal Party Committee in formulating the "Eight-Step Strong Responsibility" mechanism for integrity risk prevention and control, taking the field of engineering construction bidding and tendering as the focus and selecting 13 key units — including the Municipal Development and Reform Commission, the Municipal Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau, and the Municipal Transportation Bureau — as pilots. Centering on eight links — detailed investigation, responsibility assumption, responsibility optimization, responsibility fulfillment, responsibility shouldering, accountability, review, and reporting — it seeks to clarify the trajectory of the exercise of power, strengthen risk screening, clarify responsibility lists, strengthen source governance, strengthen integrity risk prevention and control, and promote the normalization and long-term effectiveness of preventing and governing corruption. At present, the pilot units have screened 680 major projects and power matters (items) and, in response to existing integrity risk points, formulated targeted prevention and control measures.

In addition to plugging institutional loopholes, the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision also, in conjunction with the opportunity of building a node city under the "Eastern Data, Western Computing" initiative, closely focused on the links prone to bidding and tendering problems and promoted relevant departments to enhance the capacity and level of "digital transformation" in bidding and tendering, further consolidating and expanding the achievements of special rectification.

"The value of special rectification lies in treating the root cause; we must strive to solve industry-wide and systemic problems. We will always adhere to the strict tone without wavering, and with the concept, approach, and method of advancing the 'three non-corruptions' as one — not daring to be corrupt, not being able to be corrupt, and not wanting to be corrupt — consolidate and expand the achievements of rectification, continuously promote institutional building and reform of regulatory mechanisms in the bidding and tendering field, tighten the institutional system, improve regulatory quality and effectiveness, strictly manage the ranks, continuously improve the political ecosystem in the bidding and tendering field, and promote the building of a standardized, law-based, and fair-competition market environment," Wu Zulu said.