Mo Miaorong , Mayor of Xiaoshan in Zhejiang province, has been sentenced to life in prison for accepting bribes worth more than one million yuan (HK$930,000) with his wife. He has been stripped of his party membership and all official positions in and outside the party, Xinhua (the New China News Agency) said. At least 61 others involved in the case have been or will be dealt with, Xinhua added. Investigators found that Mo took bribes from low-ranking officials and businessmen when he became mayor and while director of the Jiangnan Investment Bureau of Hangzhou from 1992 to 1995. As he rose in the party and government hierarchy from 1989 to 1995, he and his family received money, gifts and valuables worth more than one million yuan. 'Mo also gambled at home and in other places,' Xinhua said. 'His wife lent out public funds at extraordinary high rates of interest to reap private gains. 'His son also manipulated his father's power to operate a property company and grab profits.' Mo is one of the highest level officials to be punished in the anti-graft campaign. A recent circular released by the Central Discipline and Inspection Commission called on cadres from various levels of the party organisation to learn from the lesson of Mo and pledged to boost the system of monitoring party discipline. 'Even as the Party Central Committee time and again emphasised that leading party members must be honest, clean and self-disciplined, Mo Miaorong did not heed the call, stuck to his ways, against the prevailing anti-graft trend, and was an extremely bad influence,' the circular said. All cadres, no matter at what level of seniority, would be punished if found to be subverting party discipline, it added. As China steps up its corruption campaign, several senior officials have been jailed. Ouyang De , a senior official in the Guangdong provincial congress and party secretary of Dongguan city, was sentenced to 15 years for taking HK$92,760 in bribes. Cen Huanreng, a party vice-secretary in Guangdong's Jiangzhou township, was executed for gambling away public funds totalling more than HK$13 million.
