China's efforts to end the collusion between government
officials and colliery owners, a major reason for poor work safety
standards in coalmines, has seen "initial success," it was revealed
yesterday.
By October 20, 4,578 officials had reported having investments
in coalmines totaling 653 million yuan (US$80.5 million), said
Vice-Minister of Supervision Chen Changzhi at a press
conference.
To date, 473 million yuan (US$56 million) of that amount has
been withdrawn, Chen said during his summing up of the two-month
drive by four ministerial departments to clear collieries of
official investment.
Those who have withdrawn their shares in coalmines include 3,002
civil servants and 1,576 heads of state-owned enterprises. They
would be exempted from punishment, said Chen.
But criminal or disciplinary penalties would be meted out to
those who made their investments through ill-gotten gains, whether
through bribery or other illegal channels.
The four departments involved are the Ministry of Supervision,
the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist
Party of China, the State-owned Assets Supervision and
Administration of the State Council, and the State Administration
of Work Safety (SAWS).
In late August, the departments launched a drive to clear the
coalmine industry of shares held by officials, setting October 20
as the deadline.
Lured by huge profits, some officials abused their powers to
protect owners of illegally run collieries that lacked basic work
safety standards, said Li Yizhong, head of SAWS.
Collusion was particularly rampant in privately owned mines,
experts said.
Hu Jianchang, vice-director of the provincial bureau of work
safety in south China's Guangdong Province, took 100,000 yuan
(US$12,000) in bribes and issued a safety certificate to Daxing
Coal Mine on June 5, despite the fact that Daxing did not have the
appropriate work safety procedures in place. A month later, a flood
in the mine killed 121 miners.
Statistics indicate that about 6,000 miners are killed in
colliery accidents each year as a result of work safety
violations.
Government officials are prohibited, by law, from acquiring
shares in unlisted companies.
According to Chen, the government will ensure that various
localities check and complete the registration work as soon as
possible and prevent any fraud during the share reporting
process.
"We will thoroughly investigate the exact situation of the
people withdrawing shares," he said.
A joint inspection group will soon be set up to check the
implementation of the drive, he said.
"Those who have transferred their colliery shares to other
people or are holding shares secretly will be removed from their
posts outright and be held liable for administrative or criminal
punishment," Chen said.
To improve safety records, SAWS has suspended operations of more
than 8,600 collieries, mainly small ones that could not meet basic
safety standard requirements, Li said.
(China Daily November 2, 2005)