Discipline watchdog to hold auction in Wenzhou

The Party discipline watchdog in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province will launch an auction for more than 80 items collected from local officials who received bribes on May 10, local authorities said.

The goods include luxury watches, wine, precious traditional Chinese medicine, gold and silver, with a combined opening bid of up to 60,000 yuan ($9608), said the local CPC discipline inspection commission.

The opening bid of the individual goods varies from the lowest 40 yuan for a shirt, to the highest 15,000 yuan for a Cartier watch, reported zjoL.com.cn.

The money collected from the auction will be handed to a government-run public account, which was set up for officials to hand in the bribes they failed to return.

Authorities said the goods to be auctioned were mostly voluntarily submitted by officials from more than 50 departments, and a small part was confiscated from officials.

The account, called "incorrupt account", has been opened in different places to prevent graft. The money collected through the account normally ends into the State treasury.

As of late April, the balance of the account in Wenzhou stood at some 15 million yuan.

An auction for the confiscated assets of a notorious corrupt official in the city in 2009 drew strong enthusiasm among local residents. The volume of transaction of more than 100 items including diamonds and ivory, reached more than 1 million yuan with an opening bid of some 400,000 yuan.

Auctions were not held for a few years as the number of items collected was small.