Police have swooped on 14 people suspected of siphoning
compensation money away from the largest Sino-foreign petrochemical
project in China.
They were being questioned in Huizhou, a city of South China's Guangdong
Province, following their arrests.
The US$4.3 billion project with 50 percent Shell investment is
going on as scheduled.
The suspects - mainly township and village officials - were
suspected of defrauding the local government of a large sum of
money that was set aside for farmers as compensation for the loss
of their land and property.
An
official from the Huizhou Commission for Discipline Inspection of
the Communist Party of China said the 14 were being investigated on
suspicion of exaggerating property and the number of fruit trees in
order to gain more compensation from the local government.
The case has involved a total of 63 people - most of them local
villagers.
They were suspected of teaming up with local township officials to
defraud the government of the compensation money, the official
said.
Investigators have recovered more than 13 million yuan (US$1.57
million) in economic losses.
The official said the case did not involve misappropriation of the
project's construction funds which came from overseas and Chinese
investors.
Local governments planned to offer more than 4 billion yuan
(US$481.93 million) in compensation to farmers and invest in the
construction of highways, water and electricity supply facilities
and other infrastructure facilities, the official said.
"The case does not really affect the progress of the project," the
official said.
The project will begin construction this year as scheduled, the
official said. It will be built jointly by the China National
Offshore Oil Corporation and Shell Chemicals, a member of the Royal
Dutch/Shell group.
Irregularities first came to light in April when departments under
the Huizhou municipal government received complaints from local
residents.
(China Daily February 17, 2003)