Party expels university firm's boss over losses
The former president of a firm affiliated with Nankai University in Tianjin has been expelled from the Communist Party for 'causing the university huge economic losses'.
Yang Yulin, who managed Nankai University's Yungong Group between 1997 and last year, had been in hiding since March over widespread financial irregularities amounting to 400 million yuan, the China Business News reported.
Quoting unnamed sources, the newspaper said yesterday that Mr Yang had allegedly misappropriated and embezzled more than 110 million yuan.
The university confirmed the expulsion but disputed the amounts involved.
The scandal has once again shed light on murky business and investment activities that mainland universities have been forced to use to bridge a funding gap since the late 1990s, when governments began drastic cuts to college budgets.
Former Tianjin University president Shan Ping was expelled from the National People's Congress, the mainland's top legislative body, in late November for authorising botched investments of public funds on the stock market that led to the loss of at least 30 million yuan.
Hou Zixin, former dean of Nankai University, was removed from his post in May shortly after the irregularities came to light, with his age cited as the reason.
The China Business News said a Beijing-based accounting firm was called in and auditors were stunned by the shoddy bookkeeping at the Nankai company.
But Ding Feng, director of Nankai University's Information Centre, rejected the report as inaccurate, saying the amount of money linked to the irregularities stood at 20 million yuan at most.
'As investigations go deeper, the scale of the irregularities is not as severe as we initially thought,' Mr Ding said.
He accused the journalists of basing their article on hearsay.
