China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Provincial officials removed from posts
Two provinciallevel officials were demoted to departmental level and not allowed to take on leadership positions for serious discipline violations including “not cherishing several educational and remedial opportunities offered” and “leaking confidential information of a discipline inspection work group”, China’s top anti-graft watchdog announced on Thursday.
The Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a statement that Wei Hong had been removed from his posts, as governor and vice-Party chief of Sichuan province, for “serious violations of discipline”.
He will be demoted to vicedepartmental level.
The discipline watchdog said on its website that it had investigated Wei with the approval of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.
The investigation found that Wei, 62, was disloyal and dishonest to the Party and ignored many opportunities to rectify his wrongdoing. He attempted to subvert the investigation and refused to confess, seriously violating the Party political and organizational code of conduct.
The investigation also found Wei interfered with judicial activities.
On Jan 15, the CCDI said Wei was suspected of corrup- tion, but had given no other details. A week later, the provincial people’s congress accepted Wei’s resignation as the governor of Sichuan. He has been working in Sichuan for more than 30 years.
Meanwhile, He Jiatie, former member of the provincial CPC standing committee of Hunan province, was also found to be “leaking confidential information of a discipline inspection work group” when he was appointed as the deputy director of the work group, the CCDI said in another statement.
He, 55, was also accused of visiting private clubs and paying personal expenses with public funds, which is seriously against Party discipline.
He began to work for the Hunan discipline inspection commission in 1995 and left for a post in Beijing in 2008.
He was appointed deputy director of inspection groups dispatched by the CCDI to Chongqing, Yunnan province, Tianjin and the Tibet autonomous region between 2013 and 2014.
In 2015, 10 provincial-level officials were demoted, the CCDI said on Jan 29, and one of them was demoted to office clerk.
In a separate case, Liu Zhigeng, vice-governor of South China’s Guangdong province, is under investigation for “suspected serious disciplinary violation”, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced in a statement on its website on Thursday night.