HONG KONG�China has begun a formal investigation into the activities of atop provincial judicial in its eastern province of Jiangxi for illegalactivities.
Ding Xinfa, the head of the Jiangxi provincial People's Procuratorate, theState prosecutory body, is the first incumbent provincial prosecutor to beinvestigated, a report in Hong Kong's Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po newspaper said.
Recently rumors had been circulating in the provincial capital of Nanchangthat Ding's son and adopted son had run into trouble with authorities fortax fraud, and that Ding had said a number of times that his sons' affairswere their responsibility, the Wen Wei Po reported.
Ding was still appearing at public functions up until last week, hostinganti-graft meetings and attending July 1 celebration performances, the papersaid.
Local officials confirmed that the investigation had begun. "Yes, that'scorrect," an official who answered the phone at the Jiangxi ProvincialProcuratorate said in confirmation of the paper's report. "The centralgovernment will certainly investigate it..."
He said the investigation had begun last Saturday following Ding's lastappearance in public. "But I am not familiar with the rest of thecircumstances...I can't really answer any more." the official said.
A Jiangxi-based dissident identified by his surname Xiong said theactivities of Ding's sons were widely talked about in the area. "The Dingfamily home is about three miles from my place, in the next county..." Xiongtold RFA in an interview.
"After Ding rose to be a ranking official, he madearrangements for his family. His younger brother became the chief of theNanchang public security bureau, and his father opened up a casino and arestaurant and became high-handed."
"Everything in today's society is about who you've got backing you up.Because if you've got [top-level official] back-up, nobody dares to touchyou," Xiong said.
But Xiong said Ding's investigation probably had less to do with a concertedeffort to combat graft than with the likelihood that he had crossed otherpowerful provincial leaders. "This is a very common phenomenon....It's allabout power struggles," he said.
China's new generation of leaders has identified nationwide corruption on amassive scale as a key priority, although only tiny proportion of corruptioncases ever see daylight.
Official media estimated recently that U.S. $30 billion a year disappearsfrom state coffers in China through the actions of fraudulent officials.Another estimate by a Chinese scholar put the amount at U.S.$157 billionover three years.
The authorities sacked 19,374 civil servants between 1996 and 2003 as partof efforts to build a clean and efficient government, according to figuresreleased Monday by the Ministry of Personnel.
Civil servants who failed in two consecutive year of performance assessment,or who were found to be incompetent and refused to accept other jobarrangement, are supposed to be dismissed under a central governmentoverhaul of the bureaucracy.
The disciplinary measures were part of a campaign against poor performanceand illegal activities, the ministry was quoted by the official Xinhua newsagency as saying. "The campaign uncovered irregularities involving 8.8billion yuan (U.S.$1.06 billion), according to figures provided by theMinistry of Supervision. A total economic loss of 5.25 billion yuan had beenretrieved, the agency said. #####