Greed key motivation behind officials’ illegal actions

Editor’s note: Corruption Fight Is Always Underway, a documentary produced by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and CCTV, continues to broadcast the stories of former senior officials accused of corruption during the country’s anti-graft drive. The series, which began last Monday, consists of eight episodes over nine days (Saturday was excluded) at 8 pm on CCTV-1. The interviews were conducted while the former officials were detained, but before any court action.

According to the documentary, Pan asked local villagers to provide fake identification cards and forged documents for land expropriation projects between December 2012 to May 2013.

He collected 3 million yuan ($443,000) in compensation by using the fabricated documents. Another 15 officials and functionaries have been found in cahoots with Pan and collected a total of about 280 million yuan by using fabricated relocation information. According to disciplinary authorities in Yinhai district in March, 11 of the officials have been jailed, three have been expelled from the Party, one has been removed from a public post and another has been given a warning.

The court in Ningyang county sentenced him to 10 years and six months in prison on Oct 22, 2014. Zhang later appealed to the Taian Intermediate People’s Court, but was rejected.

The documentary shows that Zhang embezzled 157,400 yuan in public funds for kids of about 20 families in destitution. The children are either orphans or live with disabled parents.

Zhang told the families that the monthly benefits would start to be distributed in October 2013, though the money should have been given to the families starting in January that year.

“I’ve contemplated the consequences of what I did. I knew it was illegal, but I failed to stop the violations because I was greedy for money and my was not enough for me.”

Pan Guangxu, a former official at the land expropriation office in Yinhai district in Beihai, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region “I lost heavily in the stock market a few years ago. I (took the public funds for disadvantaged families) to cover for the losses in the stock market.”

Zhang Shilong, former head of the social welfare office in Ningyang county of Taian, Shandong province — ZHANG YI