Society

Building industry hammers corrupt officials  

By Yan Jie (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-05-18 08:04

BEIJING - A total of 1,924 wrongdoers have been punished for breaching Party and administrative discipline from December to March in a national crackdown on misconduct in the construction industry, according to the latest figures published on Tuesday by the Ministry of Supervision.

This brought the total number of wrongdoers to more than 11,000 since the campaign began in September 2009, Hao Mingjin, vice-minister of supervision, said on Tuesday.

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Hao is a leading member of a taskforce that is meant to deal with wrongdoings related to construction projects, such as taking bribes for awarding contracts.

As of the end of March, the number of city-level officials punished during the crackdown amounted to 78, with the number of county-level officials totaling 1,089, said Hao.

A total of 5,698 people including officials and government employees had been referred to the judicial departments nationwide for trials, he added.

In addition, 20 typical cases in various industry sectors, such as the construction of low-rent housings, railways, irrigation projects and mining, were made public by the ministry.

In one of the most high-profile cases, Fan Zhongqian, former mayor assistant of Guiyang, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in July 2010. Fan was found guilty of accepting a total of 10 million yuan ($1.5 million) in bribes, including an ancient Chinese sutra that was made of gold. In return, Fan helped contractors win contracts for construction projects in Guiyang.

"They have showed that the construction industry is still corruption-prone," said Hao. "And we need to continue to step up efforts to investigate and handle cases."

"The fundamental issue is how to effectively rein in the power of the officials," said Xu Yaotong, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Governance.

Leading officials usually have the absolute authority to make decisions about construction projects without supervision or criticism, Xu added.