The disciplinary watchdog of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Friday announced a list of officials in the country's less-developed inland provinces who had been sacked or demoted for wasting funds on the construction of lavish government buildings.

According to the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), 18 county level officials of Puyang County in central China's Henan Province were given punishments ranging from internal Party reprimands to dismissal. Party boss He Guangbo was demoted and former county head Zhang Jianguo was let off with a warning.

Despite Puyang being one of the poorest counties in China, the Puyang county government spent 32.84 million yuan (4.21 million U.S. dollars) on a new office building which covers a total area of 18,746 square meters between 2002 and 2004.

The county's labor and social security bureau was found to have misappropriated 7.7 million yuan of pension funds and living subsidies for laid-off workers from a fertilizer factory to build the bureau's office building and training center.

In addition, the county's discipline inspection commission collected 1.06 million yuan of unwarranted funds from its lower level units to fill the gap in payments for its office building, according to the CCDI.

In another case, Gao Zhixin, former head of the grain bureau of Shanxi Province was removed from its post and was investigated by legal authorities on other problems.

According to the CCDI, the bureau misappropriated national grain reserve funds of 1.5 million yuan to construct a 6.9-million-yuan hotel project in Wulao Mountain, a famous scenic spot in Shanxi.

State-owned enterprises under the bureau were asked to contribute the other 5.4 million yuan.

Also in Shanxi, the former head of the mine safety watchdog Li Jianguo in Xinzhou city was discharged from its post and reprimanded in March 2007 for borrowing 2.09 million yuan from state-owned collieries to build extravagant government buildings.

Yang Zengyu, former head of the finance bureau of Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province was removed and Chen Dongzhi, former vice mayor of Lanzhou, received an internal Party reprimand for similar reason.

The news comes swiftly after the General Office of the State Council and the General Office of the Central Committee of the CPC issued a circular last month in response to public discontent, reiterating the ban on construction of wasteful and extravagant government buildings, including departmental hotels and entertainment centers.

Source: Xinhua