57 penalized in China's US$135m railway spending scandal

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2013-10-22

CRCC is the second largest state-owned construction enterprise in China with
2 million employees in more than 60 countries and regions. (Photo/Xinhua)

China's anti-graft authorities have continued their crackdown on corruption by handing down penalties to 57 people in the aftermath of the China Railway Construction Corporation scandal.

A total of 57 people have been censured, eight punished and one transferred to judicial authorities for prosecution after it was revealed that the state-owned rail construction giant spent a whopping 837 million yuan (US$135 million) on receptions and events last year.

Wang Qishan, chief of the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection, China's top disciplinary watchdog, demanded that the case and the problems identified during the investigation be dealt with "severely." In a move seen as his way of adding pressure on subordinates to take on more responsibility and strengthen supervision, Wang also requested that Qiang Weidong, secretary of the disciplinary committee of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and Qi Xiaofei, secretary of the disciplinary committee of China Railway Construction, sign and endorse the investigation report.

Qiang said during a media briefing that although most of the spending on receptions was generally in accordance with regulations, the investigation found that invoices were unstandardized, reimbursements of expenses were lax and that accounting was inappropriately classified. The company's management has since taken steps to rectify the problems, Qiang said, which is why it has reported a 20% drop in reception spending in the first half of the year.

The reception spending crackdown is in line with the "eight key points" introduced by the Communist Party last December focused on rejecting extravagance and reducing bureaucratic visits, meetings and empty talk. Earlier this month, a Beijing village deputy party chief held an extravagant three-day wedding celebration for his son, including performances by local celebrities. He has since been removed from his post.

On Oct. 16, Wang attended a discussion forum for province-level officials warning that fighting corruption involves cracking down on "small errors" as early as possible so that they will not develop into "large errors." He said anti-graft authorities must punish all corrupt activities so that every official will fear the consequences of their actions.

Chinese president and Communist Party chief Xi Jinping said at the start of the year that authorities would be cracking down on all corrupt officials, regardless of whether they are lowly "flies" or high-flying "tigers."

Wang is said to recognize that the problem with "flies" is that they are everywhere and in huge numbers, but that if they are not dealt with early they could eventually turn into "tigers."

Publicly available information revealed that Chinese authorities looked into 34,326 cases of corruption in 2012 involving 47,338 people and as much as 8.79 billion yuan (US$1.44 billion). Of the 2,569 government employees investigated, 93% were at the county-level or below, indicating that the vast majority of problems identified are at the grassroots level.

Last week, three county-level officials from Chongqing in southwest China were apprehended by authorities on suspicion of serious disciplinary violations, suggesting that the focus of the party's anti-graft drive could be shifting towards "flies" after a series of "tiger" takedowns over the past year, including former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai, former railways minister Liu Zhijun and former state assets chief and China National Petroleum Corporation chairman Jiang Jiemin.