The local government in Lintao county, Northwest China's Gansu Province confirmed that it deducts funds from its civil servants' salaries every year to fund tree-planting initiatives.
Lintao, which is listed as a national-level poverty-stricken county, has deducted 10 percent from the salaries of civil servants and employees of public institutions each May since 2013, costing each person around 400 yuan ($62) annually, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Sunday.
The annual voluntary donation for tree-planting fees, which amounted to 10 percent of each person's monthly salary, was made a compulsory deduction by the local government.
"Now we have realized that this move is not in accordance with national regulations," Zhu Diancheng, deputy head of the county, was quoted by CCTV as saying.
The collection of voluntary tree-planting fees was stipulated in a regulation implemented in 1982, but the fees were cancelled by the State Council after 2013, according to CCTV.
Fu Tianjun, an official from Lintao's finance bureau, said the total 13.8 million yuan ($2.12 million) collected over the last three years was all spent on afforestation projects, with a 2.8 million yuan surplus.
The newly planted trees are supposed to be drought-tolerant, and the collected money was indeed used for hiring people to plant the trees, CCTV reported.
Zhu pledged not to deduct the afforestation fees from salaries in 2016, but he asked every civil servant and employee of public institutions to voluntarily plant five trees, adding that the planted trees need to have a survival rate of up to 90 percent.
