China to install GPS in government cars to track misuse

October 12, 2013 Leave a comment

China to install GPS in government cars to track misuse

6:29am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will install GPS systems in government cars to thwart personal use by officials, domestic media said on Friday, citing the Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog, as it cracks down on the profligate lifestyles of corrupt officials. Almost 200,000 government cars have been misused for private purposes, the Beijing Times newspaper said, citing the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.The agency also recommended that ministries and regions detail the expenses of car costs.

The southern city of Guangzhou adopted a similar plan using Global Positioning Satellite systems in 2011, the paper said. According to the graft watchdog, the city has already saved 42 million yuan ($6.87 million) each year, or 5,000 yuan per car.

Since taking over as Communist Party chief late last year and as the head of state in March, President Xi Jinping has called corruption a threat to the party’s survival and vowed to go after powerful “tigers” as well as lowly “flies”.

Xi has sought to calm growing public anger at the flamboyant lifestyles of many officials, most of whom are on low salaries. The government has vowed to fight the “four tendencies” of bad cadres, which include “hedonism” and “extravagance”.

On Wednesday, the Communist Party’s anti-graft watchdog also reported it had carried out a secret investigation into cadres who used public funds over last week’s National Day holiday to stay at rural bed-and-breakfasts. ($1=6.1158 Chinese yuan)

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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