Liu Zirong, a village official in Guangdong province, stood trial on Tuesday for allegedly misappropriating almost 24 million yuan ($3.5 million) of public money.

Liu, secretary of the Communist Party of China branch of Zidong village, was charged with squandering village assets on gambling and loans to his own company, said prosecutors at the hearing at the Chancheng district court of Foshan city. Most of the funds was compensation for land expropriated from villagers from 2004 to 2006, prosecutors said.

Liu was among the 78 village cadres who were investigated over allegations of abuse of power by prosecutors in Guangdong in the first quarter of 2009.

According to the statistics issued in April by the Supreme People's Procuratorate, a total of 4,968 village cadres in village committees were involved in corruption cases last year, 1,090 more than in 2006.

The country has more than 5 million village cadres, but traditionally focuses only on high-ranking officials in its anti-corruption endeavors.

"Pinned at the bottom of the power pyramid, their appetite somehow has grown insatiable," said Zhong Wendong, director of the commission on criminal justice of Guangzhou municipal lawyers' association.

With the rapid development of China's economy, abuse of power by village chiefs had begun to prevail, especially in wealthy coastal villages, Zhong said.

Xinhua

(China Daily 12/03/2009 page4)