BEIJING, Jan 7: Supervision over preparations for the 2008 Summer Olympics will be tightened to prevent corruption, a senior Beijing official said. Ma Zhipeng, secretary of the Beijing Commission for Discipline Inspection, told a meeting on supervision of Olympic venue construction projects that monitoring work had to be improved at all levels, according to the official Xinhua News Agency on Sunday.“We should try our best, using every method and mobilizing as much manpower as we can to supervise the preparatory work,” said Ma, who is also a standing committee member for the Communist Party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Last year, Beijing vice mayor Liu Zhihua, who was in charge of overseeing Olympic construction projects was fired and handed over to prosecutors to face bribery charges.

Beijing officials have said that Liu's alleged misdeeds have nothing to do with Olympic projects, but his dismissal has put a cloud over preparations and last month Liu Qi, also chairman of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympics, promised a “clean” Olympics.

Liu Zhihua, who was fired suddenly in June for unspecified corrupt acts, “took several million yuan (dollars, euros) in bribes and helped his mistress to seek profit in projects,” state media reported last month.

Olympic sporting venues make up only a small share of the US$38 billion (euro30 billion) Beijing is spending on urban renewal and infrastructure construction for 2008. The construction and real estate trades in the rapidly urbanizing capital are rife with corrupt dealings with officials.

Recently there has been a general anti-corruption drive in Beijing and other major Chinese cities. State media announced recently that new Communist Party corruption watchdogs had been appointed in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. — AP