Anti-graft campaign picks up momentum with two probes
Corruption clean-up continues with investigations into health official in Shenzhen and property development bureaucrat in Chengdu
The mainland's corruption crackdown has claimed two more scalps, with a senior official in Shenzhen and another in Chengdu being investigated by the Communist Party's anti-graft watchdog.
Dr Jiang Hanping , director of Shenzhen's Health, Population and Family Planning Commission, was being investigated for "serious discipline violations", Xinhua reported. Jiang, 55, previously worked as chief of a public hospital and head of the city's health bureau. The Xinhua report gave no details about the suspected violations.
A source close to the authorities said Jiang had been implicated in the city's anti-graft campaign during the preceding summer.
Sixteen hospital executives and doctors in Shenzhen were taken away by investigators in June for suspected links to commercial bribery, including five hospital heads or deputy heads and four hospital department chiefs.
The investigations targeted 13 hospitals suspected of taking bribes in return for medicine purchases, enabling doctors to get kickbacks for allowing certain drugs into the hospitals.
Meanwhile, Mao Yixin , head of the Land and Resources Bureau in Chengdu's Xindu district, was reportedly put under shuanggui, which allows for the detention and interrogation of party members, at the end of September, Beijing News reported.
The report confirmed an internet rumour that Mao had fallen from grace after becoming involved in a big property development project in northern Chengdu. More than 38 million yuan (HK$47 million) in cash was rumoured to have been found in his home.
Wang Chengyong , the official in charge of discipline inspection at the bureau, told the newspaper that the investigation into Mao had been announced at the end of September, when Chengdu's discipline inspection commission told the bureau that Mao was being probed for "serious economic problems".
Wang said Mao was placed under investigation a month after Chengdu Industry Investment Group chairman Dai Xiaoming was taken away for questioning. Dai was a former party secretary in Chengdu's Qingbaijiang district, and a former director of the city's Economic and Information Commission.