646 Chinese Officials Investigated for MalfeasanceChina's procuratorates have handled more than 76,000 cases related to malfeasance of government employees over the past three years, in which 646 officials involved have been investigated or further punished.Out of the total 76,069 cases, 26,827 cases are undergoing the investigative procedure, in which the suspects were accused of abusing power, malpractice, bending the law for personal benefit, or infringing citizens' personal and democratic rights. Two minister-level officials were among the investigated officials whose previous ranks were at the county level or higher, including Xu Yunhong, former alternate member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Party secretary of Ningbo in east China's Zhejiang Province. Xu took advantage of his position to seek personal benefit and was the first minister-level official prosecuted in the history of China. China's top prosecutor Han Zhubin has urged procurators nationwide to "seriously investigate and deal with malpractice and power abuse among government staffs, particularly law-enforcers, as part of the nation's anti-corruption campaign." "Grave neglect of duty of some government employees has caused frequent and horrible disasters such as collapsed buildings and bridges, and fires and explosions," Han, procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, said at a national meeting here today. "Blind policy-making by some officials has caused huge losses of state property to threaten the country's economic safety," he told the procurators, who discussed how to fight against malfeasance. Major cases handled in the 1997-1999 period also included substandard construction projects as a result of quality negligence, confessions forced by law-enforcers, and infringement of personal rights in rural areas. Because of the procurators' effort to handle malpractice cases in state-owned enterprises, direct economic losses totaling 1.45 billion yuan (175 million U.S. dollars) have been prevented over the past three years. |
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