Breaches of discipline and abuse of power have been found at the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) according to the report of an inspection team from China's top disciplinary watchdog on Saturday.
Chen Guanglin, the head of the inspection team, pointed out that the problems were discovered in the ministry's foreign aid projects, domestic capital utilization and administrative management.
Chen added that extravagant work styles have been exposed with excessively luxurious conferences and weak frugality consciousness among officials. The process of official selection and promotion is not strict enough.
In response to the findings, the MOC has vowed to examine itself and implement rectification.
Several officials, who were found to have offered receptions at the public's expense, have been told to return the money, according to the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).
Another inspection team sent to Yunnan Province also reported on Friday about the corruption in various fields from mine and land development to education and public health services. The Yunnan team is the first among the 10 second batch inspection teams sent by the CCDI to report the result of their work.
The teams were sent to provinces of Shanxi, Jilin, Anhui, Hunan, Guangdong and Yunnan. The MOC and the Ministry of Land and Resources were also under inspection along with the Xinhua News Agency and China Three Gorges Corporation.
The CCDI sent out the first batch of 10 inspection teams in May 2013 and they have detected transgressions among six major government officials, including Guo Youming, vice-governor of Central China's Hubei Province, and Dai Chunning, deputy general manager with China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation.
Shen Yang, a political commentator and scholar, told the Global Times that China's anti-graft efforts still rely more on central power instead of a system to prevent and combat corruption.
"Many senior officials were punished after the CCDI's inspection, which deserves credit as we see the strengthened effort to lock up high level corrupt officials. But it also indicates the weak supervision from local authorities and inadequate supervision from the public and media," said Shen.
China will increase the number of inspection batches from two to three in 2014, according to Zeng Mingzi, deputy head of the inspection team office.
He said that special work teams would be dispatched to further strengthen discipline inspections, which will be expanded to government departments at all levels as well as State-owned enterprises and public institutions.
"This is an enhanced signal from the central government to further push forward the nation's anti-graft work led by the CCDI. With more work teams, we may expect more corrupt officials to be brought to light. However, we should also prevent corruption within the CCDI as the process advances," Shen warned.