China shames struggling transport bureau over fake traffic ticket scam

Name: Anger mounts as China's property debt crisis leaves flats unfinished
Uploaded: 2024-01-23T00:00:21.000Z
Duration: 4 min 49 s
Description: Anger mounts as China's property debt crisis leaves flats unfinished

The State Council says officers forged signatures in nearly 2,000 cases last year

Investigation launched after fined truck driver complains of never receiving formal notification, as required by law

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A crisis in China’s property sector is putting stress on local government finances. Photo: EPA-EFE

Mandy Zuoin Shanghai

Published: 8:00am, 23 Jan 2024

A cash-strapped local government in northern China was named and shamed for arbitrarily fining road users and faking their signatures, the latest example of a struggling authority using unorthodox revenue schemes to plug holes in the books.

The State Council, China’s cabinet, singled out the transport bureau of She county in Hebei province on Friday, accusing it of faking signatures on over 93 per cent of the traffic tickets it issued last year.

Traffic police are required by law to get the signatures and fingerprints of the alleged offenders but She county’s officers did not do so in hundreds of cases.

It said a provincial government investigation found that details were faked on 1,964 of the 2,099 traffic tickets the department issued over the period.

Some of the alleged traffic incidents were so minor as not to warrant any punishment, the council said.

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Anger mounts as China's property debt crisis leaves flats unfinished

Provincial authorities launched their investigation after a truck driver complained about being fined 500 yuan (US$70) for “polluting the road during transport” but never receiving official notification of the penalty.