By staff reporter Wang Heyan

From Caijing online

Altay city in Xinjiang made public the income statements of 55 officials on January 1. There is still a long way to go toward true transparency, however.

The only documents made available to the public were salary slips showing that each of these 55 officials earns from 20,000 to 40,000 yuan per year. On paper none of them, nor any of their relatives, admitted accepting cash, gifts or securities from job-related organizations or individuals.

In addition, many more declarations were labeled classified, including money inherited, received as gifts or won in a lottery, and personal property worth more than 100,000 yuan.

Party disciplinary officials in Altay noted several reasons behind the partial declaration -- to protect legal property of officials, their safety, and their privacy.

Starting this year, Altay requires officials to declare their income annually until three years after retirement.

Media and scholars disagreed on the significance of Altay’s experiment. Some questioned the effectiveness of the new measure. Others considered such gradual exposure more realistic in China.

China passed two regulations, in 1995 and 2001, to require officials to declare their income. However, the records are not open to the public or the media. Altay is the first local government to make them public.           

He Zengke, a researcher at the Central Compilation & Translation Bureau, an influential government think tank, called Altay’s move a courageous first step toward expanding the scope of declarations from income to assets and opening the book to the public.

He said Altay can fine-tune the regulations to eventually require a full, public declaration.