Investigation launched over officials property suspicions

Disciplinary authorities in south China's Guangdong Province have begun investigating accusations that two local officials own huge property portfolios that suggest corruption.

An investigation team was set up on Jan. 4 by the disciplinary committee in Xiaolan Township, Zhongshan City, to look into the case surrounding Huang Xinze and Huo Chengtang, according to Feng Jiehong, top disciplinary official of the township.

Huang is the chief of the Communist Party of China Lianfeng community committee, while Huo is the community's top financial official.

The duo were exposed by an Internet user "13800abc" on the popular Sina Weibo microblogging service of owning eight pieces of land and properties valued at more than 100 million yuan (15.87 million U.S. dollars).

The post has been widely circulated on the Internet, with netizens suspecting the two officials of illegally profiting from land management during their tenure.

"It is hard to imagine that officials at community level have so much wealth!" said an Internet user with the screen name "Xiayewenqing."

Another user, "Zhainanweipangdedashu", however, pointed out that local people of that region are quite wealthy and it is not unusual for people to have several houses there.

In an interview with Xinhua, Huang confessed that he and Huo jointly own the properties.

But he said all the land and buildings were purchased with money they earned through their business over the years.

Huang and Huo, both 58, said they own more than 10 plants involved in businesses including brick-making and printing.

They have submitted a report containing details of their properties to the township's disciplinary committee.

Feng said no corruption or infringement of law by the two officials have been found so far.

China's Internet and newly emerged social networking services like Sina Weibo have created a wide platform for the public to monitor government officials' wrongdoing or corruption.

Over the past few months, the wrongdoing or suspected corruption of dozens of government officials at various levels have been exposed by Internet whistle-blowers, leading to sackings of some accused of possessing property and other assets well beyond their financial means.

Cai Bin, an urban management official in Guangdong, was dismissed from his post in October after online postings said he owned 22 houses.

Zhai Zhenfeng, a former housing administration official in central China's Henan Province, was detained last week on corruption charges after a whistle-blower revealed that he owns 29 houses.

Exposing corruption online has gained momentum after the 18th National Congress of the CPC in November, as the newly elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Xi Jinping, named corruption a pressing problem within the Party that needs to be resolved.

Yue Jinglun, a public affairs professor at Sun Yat-Sen University, said community-level officials have substantial power especially in handling collectively owned land in rural areas.

Yue suggested that the government should therefore limit officials' commercial activities, and a mechanism should be adopted for officials to make pre-appointment declarations of how much property they own in order to prevent corruption.