The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) expelled three deputies yesterday --
two for economic crimes and another for his involvement in a
hit-and-run road accident.
The resignations of Zhu Junyi, Zhou Jinhuo and Huang Xuejiu as
deputies to the National People's Congress were approved by the NPC
Standing Committee at the end of a six-day legislative session.
Zhu Junyi, director of the Shanghai Municipal Labor and Social
Security Bureau, stands accused of a "grave breach of discipline"
in supervising the use of government pension funds. The 55-year-old
labor official is the first Shanghai bureau chief to resign as a
national legislator.
Under investigation on charges of receiving bribes and violating
state financial rules, as revealed by sources close to the city’s
legislature, Zhu was also dismissed from his bureau post by
Shanghai lawmakers on August 11.
More than 100 investigators from Beijing arrived in Shanghai to
probe the corruption case in which money was siphoned off from
Shanghai's social security system which manages over 10 billion
yuan (US$1.25 billion) in funds.
Zhou Jinhuo, former director of Fujian's Bureau of Industry and Commerce, was
accused of graft in the relatively wealthy coastal province.
The 57-year-old official tried to flee overseas in June while
being investigated for corruption by the CPC Central Commission for
Discipline Inspection. He was caught in Yunnan after police traced
a call he made to one of his three mistresses informing her of his
whereabouts.
On August 2 the Standing Committee of the Fujian Provincial
People's Congress in east China decided to sack him.
Huang Xuejiu, 55, secretary of the Mianyang municipal committee
of CPC in southwest Sichuan Province, was lambasted for fleeing
the scene of a road accident in which an 18-year-old girl was
killed. Huang was inebriated at the time.
A local property developer surnamed Qiu was made to take the
blame when police began investigating the case. Huang was also
charged with obstructing the investigation. The official has been
ousted from his city post by the Sichuan provincial people's
congress.
They follow a string of senior officials sacked from national
legislator posts over the past few months.
Former publicity minister of the provincial committee of the
Communist Party of China of east China's Fujian Province, Jing
Fusheng, had his membership of the NPC terminated earlier this
month for receiving bribes.
In late June, the former vice naval commander, Wang Shouye, had
his membership terminated for moral degeneracy and for extorting
bribes.
At the same time, two other legislators, Ge Zheng from Zhejiang
Province and Luo Zeqin from Guangdong Province, resigned as national
legislators. Ge was charged with illegal accumulation of funds and
Luo with tax evasion.
Last year China's procurators investigated 8,490 government
officials including eight at ministerial level. China's courts
convicted 1,932 government officials of graft and six of them were
ministerial-level officials.
(Xinhua News Agency August 28, 2006)