Du Shicheng, former deputy secretary of the Shandong Provincial
Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), has been expelled
from the Party for taking huge bribes and leading a dissolute
life.
Du, also former secretary of the Qingdao Municipal CPC Committee
in Shandong, an economically developed region where the 2008
Beijing Olympics yachting events will take place, was sacked for
"serious discipline violation".
The CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection began
investigating Du's case last December.
Du was dismissed from all administrative posts. He and his
mistress are accused of taking bribes worth millions of yuan,
according to the CCDI.
"Du's abuse of public power, bribe-taking and dissolute
lifestyle seriously violated Party disciplines," it said.
The punishment has been reviewed by the CCDI standing committee
and submitted to the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee
for a final decision.
The CCDI said the Party sanctions will be endorsed by a plenary
meeting of the CPC Central Committee. Du's case will then be dealt
with in a court of law.
Du was born in March 1950 in Longkou, Shandong and joined the
CPC in December 1972. His former posts include head of the Yantai
Municipal CPC Committee and mayor of Yantai, another booming
coastal city in Shandong.
The CPC Central Commission began investigating Du's misdeeds
after receiving reports from the public during a routine inspection
last year.
Liu is the latest in a series of high-ranking officials to fall
from grace in China's fight against corruption.
The Party expelled 21,120 members last year for breaking its
rules, mainly for their involvement in corruption scandals,
according to the CCDI, the Party's discipline watchdog.
Its annual report said 2,744 corrupt officials, out of the
nearly 100,000 Party members punished last year, were removed from
their posts.
Another 8,777 CPC members were put on probation to determine
whether they should retain their Party membership, said the
report.
Gan Yisheng, vice secretary of the commission, earlier said
97,260 CPC members were punished last year for corruption. The
punishments extended to prosecution for 3,530 cadres, seven of whom
were at or above the level of minister or governor.
Gan said members who failed to abide by the Party's rules or
made grave errors accounted for only 0.14 percent of the Party's 70
million members.
One of the most widely publicized cases of expulsion of a Party
member last year was that of Qiu Xiaohua, former director of the
National Bureau of Statistics.
Qiu, who was accused of bribe-taking and polygamy, is currently
in custody and his trial will begin soon, Gan said.
Qiu was among a handful of high ranking officials that fell
during China's tough anti-graft campaign last year, which also
brought down Shanghai's former Party chief Chen Liangyu, the
highest ranking Communist official busted in a corruption probe in
a decade.
Liu Fengyan, another CCDI vice secretary, said during an
exclusive interview with Xinhua on Thursday that the Party's
discipline watchdog has intensified the fight against corruption
this year and is continuing to build a "clean" Party.
Officials who purchase commercial housing at prices far lower
than market prices by taking advantage of the influence of their
posts, occupy and use borrowed houses and vehicles but fail to
return them, take part in gambling or seek illicit money in
activities like gambling, seek illegal profits by using others to
invest in the stock market, or seek other forms of illegal earnings
for themselves and their family relatives and friends will be
seriously dealt with, Liu told Xinhua.
He said the Party will stringently crack down on money-for-power
favors, oppose waste and extravagance, curb the widespread trend of
building and renovating government offices against regulations,
eliminate sightseeing trips masquerading as "government-sponsored
tours", and promote a thrifty style of work among Party
members.
Sources from the CCDI said they were going to intensify routine
inspections and dispatch more inspection teams to dig out more
local official corruption cases. Last year, an inspection team from
the commission found several clues related to Du's corruption in
Shandong and busted a series of big bribery cases.
Local media reported that Du's main wrong-doing was involvement
in illegal land deals. "His mistresses asked him to do so,"
reported Zhi Yin, a national Chinese magazine which mainly carries
feature stories.
(Xinhua News Agency April 27, 2007)