Nearly 600 government officials at the county level and above
have been prosecuted for graft in real estate and infrastructure
projects in the first 10 months of this year, the Supreme People's
Procuratorate (SPP) said on Thursday.
A total of 4,240 bribery cases related to the two fields and
involving a combined 657 million yuan ($88.7 million) have been
investigated, a SPP statement said. These accounted for 45.1
percent of all graft cases during the period.
There were 3,039 cases involving bribes worth at least 50,000
yuan ($6,757).
"Bribery occurred more in public infrastructure and
government-funded real estate projects," the statement said.
The four areas rifest with graft were city infrastructure, land
transfers, project construction and real estate development.
"Most of the bribery cases involved the sacking of officials,
including those in charge of city planning, land management or
utility administrations," the statement said.
Prosecutors have brought 1,613 government officials to courts
during the first 10 months.
In July, former transport chief of Zhejiang Province Zhao Zhanqi
was sentenced to life imprisonment for accepting 6.2 million yuan
($837,893) in bribes.
He had used his authority to influence project tenders and
contracts as vice director of the provincial development and
planning commission, deputy head of the Xiaoshan airport
construction headquarters and head of the provincial communications
department.
To counter the growing problem of commercial bribery in these
fields, the SPP has designed special strategies for investigating
such cases.
It directly supervised probes on 20 major cases, including that
of former deputy director of Shanghai Housing, Land and Resources
Administration Yin Guoyuan.
Chen Guangzhong, a renowned professor in criminal procedure law
at the Chinese University of Politics and Law, called for further
restriction and supervision over public power and more severe
punishment for bribers.
"Government affairs, such as biding projects, should always be
conducted openly and according to due procedures and rules," Chen
told China Daily.
"Those giving bribes should also be heavily punished," he
added.
Of the 4,240 cases, only 866 dealt with bribers, who usually
receive much lighter sentences than those who accept them.
"The potential for profits and low levels of risk have made it
so that those who give bribes have little fear of legal
consequences," Chen said.
The number of commercial bribery cases Chinese courts dealt with
rose to 4,406 in the first seven months of 2007, 8.2 percent more
than the same period of last year, the Supreme People's Court (SPC)
said in September.
Nearly 95 percent of the total cases involved civil
servants.
In September, the SPC and the SPP redefined the scope of bribery
from government officials and employees of State- or privately
owned companies to include government officials and all
non-government officials.
A total of 31,119 commercial bribery cases were dealt with in
China in the past two years before August 2007, with 7.079 billion
yuan ($956.8 million) involved, sources with the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of China said earlier.
(China Daily December 8, 2007)