Shaanxi official's corruption case is the tip of iceberg

When Zhang Gaiping was party chief of Shangzhou's Shanglou district, she exerted influence in an area where the monthly wage for an official was less than 600 yuan. But in one of the poorest parts of impoverished Shaanxi province, the 49-year-old was able to amass more than 1 million yuan in five years by peddling her influence among the government employees around her.

Shangzhou officials bribed, borrowed and stole the money needed to pay her to further their careers in a corruption scandal that state media have described as the province's biggest. But Zhang's alleged graft is just one of the many official cash-for-promotions cases across the country in recent years.

Zhang's trial last week at Xian Intermediate Court illustrated the value of power as a commodity. Before being sentenced to 13 years in jail, the court heard she accepted up to 380,000 yuan in one case to help officials advance their careers.

A total of 27 officials and a local property developer paid for her influence between 2000 and last year. The public servants offering the bribes worked in departments from education and finance to transport, agriculture and welfare.

To raise the money for the bribes, the officials embezzled public funds, took bribes from their juniors or borrowed money from banks and friends.

The largest single sum Zhang received was from Chen Xinzhi, then director of Shangzhou's education bureau. Chen paid Zhang 380,000 yuan, including 40,000 yuan from a fund for a hygiene and anti-epidemic centre.