540,000 grassroot officials punished for violations

BEIJING - More than 540,000 officials at the grassroot level have been punished for discipline violations over the last five years, according to the country's anti-graft agencies Thursday.

Discipline inspection agencies investigated about 518,500 cases from November 2007 to February 2012, according to a statement from the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the Ministry of Supervision.

Discipline violation cases were found in the land expropriation, mining, education, food safety and health sectors, the statement said.

Officials in government departments, law enforcement departments, public institutions and state-owned enterprises were involved, the statement said.

A total of 1,480 cases involving improper land expropriation were investigated, as well as 12,000 cases concerning the misuse of funding for social security, poverty reduction and disaster relief, according to the statement.

About 40,000 people were punished in about 180,000 cases related to food safety, with another 170,000 cases involving the production and distribution of counterfeit fertilizer, pesticide and other agricultural products.

In the first half of this year, discipline inspectors investigated 2,760 cases in the mining sector, with 37 people punished and 25 prosecuted, the statement said.

From January to June, a total of 377 officials from major state-owned enterprises were punished for violations of discipline and law, while 1,405 law enforcement officials were prosecuted for abuse of power and aiding criminal organizations.

The government has made some efforts to improve the supervision of power and transparency of governance.

About 92 percent of villages across China have set up committees to supervise village affairs and 98 percent have regularly published their financial data, the statement said.