Former Anhui leader in graft probe

The former vice governor of Anhui Province who is under investigation for alleged disciplinary violations is claimed to have been in collusion with a local mine developer.

Ni Fake is now under investigation by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) mainly for his financial problems between 2002 to 2008, when he was the Party chief of Lu'an in Anhui, the 21st Century Business Herald reported Wednesday.

After Ni met Ji Lichang, a businessman from Hebei Province and head of the Dachang Mineral Group in Lu'an, the pair became close friends and he looked on him as a brother.

Some retired local officials who turned Ni in to the CCDI said that what Ni had done amounted to more than simply taking bribes from Ji, adding that he was given a large stake in the company.

The company's website says that it is the first to obtain mining permission in the county.

The officials revealed that Ni played an active role in issuing the mining license.

Ji was taken away by local discipline inspectors in January for a preliminary investigation, one of the inspectors said.

After Ni was promoted to the provincial level in 2009, Ji's company was said to have received a 600-million yuan ($97.9 million) reward from the county government, a huge part of its 700-million yuan fiscal revenue.

The reward was eventually canceled after media coverage, but insiders told the newspaper that Ni was the one behind the decision to grant the extravagant cash bonus.

"Ni has been a controversial person," a former official with the Lu'an government told the Global Times, adding that Ni was also known for having close ties with miners and land developers.

He said that to boost the local economy, Ni led many land development plans, resulting in massive demolitions and relocations seen in the city.

"Many people felt unhappy, but nobody dared deny that the economy grew fast with mineral exploitation and real estate projects," said the source.

Jiang Ming'an, an expert in anti-graft at Peking University, told the Global Times that it is common that corrupt officials often received bribes from businessmen in different forms due to the absence of supervision in big projects.

"Investigating a provincial-level official reflects the decisiveness in combating corruption without leniency, but an effective system to prevent such collusion also needs to be built," Jiang said.

"We all knew Ni was bold," he said, speaking of a case in 1998 before the then premier Zhu Rongji's visit to Nanling county, administered under Lu'an, where the national grain reserve was empty. Local officials, including Ni, then transported grain from neighboring counties to pretend the reserve was full.

China Central Television reported after the visit that Zhu discovered he had been duped, but as another official had orchestrated the transport, Ni kept hold of his job and was later promoted.