BEIJING, Mar 1: China has punished over 35,000 people for corruption in poverty relief funds in rural areas in the last two years, according to a top prosecution and probe agency.
Poverty relief corruption includes embezzlement by village officials due to lack of transparency or supervision, said China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP), the highest Chinese agency at national level responsible for both prosecution and investigation.
Over 35,240 people have been punished for corruption in poverty relief in rural areas in the last two years. This accounted for 22.3 per cent of work-related corruption prosecutors dealt with during the period, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Thousands of Chinese officials including some top functionaries of the ruling Communist Party and the military have been punished in the massive anti-graft drive initiated by President Xi Jinping since he took over power in 2013.
The corruption in rural relief funds included villagers being made to sign for 15,000 yuan relief funds against the allocation of 10,000 yuan.
The baffled villagers were told by their village heads that the other 5,000 yuan was used to pay for banquets, travel expenses and telephone bills for the fund distributors.
Funds, in most cases, go in to the bank accounts of villagers, but many villagers’ bank cards and passbooks are held by village officials for various reasons, many fare not even aware that they have received funds.
The SPP and the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development launched a plan in February to crack down in next five years on corruption in the area of poverty reduction.
According to the plan, prosecution authorities will work with poverty alleviation offices to make sure corruption tip-offs received via a hotline the latter operate can be transferred to the procuratorate at the same level for further investigation. (PTI)
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