The use of government cars by officials for personal use has long been a source of public dissatisfaction.

Zhejiang's Songyang County has introduced a new high-tech solution aimed at curbing mis-use of government vehicles. The county plans to install GPS in official cars in order to monitor their use.

According to a report in the People's Daily, with just one click of their mouse, officials in the county's Commission for Discipline Inspection will be able to check the position of the entire fleet of 439 official cars.

Songyang county is not the first jurisdiction to introduce such measures, according to a report in the Southern Daily in late January, the  Guangzhou Municipal Government also has plans to introduce a similar system to monitor official car use.

While Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, introduced similar measures back in 2009, though the project there was especially aimed at monitoring vehicles such as garbage trucks and various emergency and law enforcement vehicles.

According to an unnamed representative of the Songyang County Commission for Discipline Inspection, the new measures have proven very effective so far.

Li Tinggui (李廷贵), the director of Guangzhou's City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau, the officers of which are commonly known as Chengguan, said that "within my work department, mine was the first car to be fitted with a GPS."

He went on to note that "with the GPS installed, you can still go to the place you should go, but you can't go where you're not supposed to go, there's no question of it being inconvenient."

Links and Sources

People's Daily: 浙江松阳：公车GPS监管 遏制“车轮腐败”
Southern Daily: 广州市管干部用车节后加装GPS和身份识别
Xinmin: 公车私用强制熄火 长沙芙蓉区城管给88台公用车装GPS
Image: Southern Daily