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Money grows on trees for greedy officials
By Ni Tao |
August 27, 2012, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
URBAN green areas have become a new and unlikely battlefield in the fight against corruption.
People's Daily reported last week that as urbanization picks up speed, China's city managers are unusually keen on planting trees. This is not necessarily motivated by environmental awareness, nor suggests that they are fervent tree-huggers.
Planting trees is now a pet project for many officials merely because trees have literally become their personal yao qian shu - a legendary money tree that rains coins if shaken violently. For instance, the expense of a tree-planting scheme worth 600,000 yuan (US$92,025) can be inflated to 1.5 million yuan, the report says.
Many a greedy official has taken to exaggerating the cost of their environmental projects and pocketing the difference.
Zhao Guiqiang, ex-head of a district greenery bureau in Lijiang, Yunnan Province, a scenic city popular with tourists, was recently sentenced to 13 years in prison for taking bribes valued at 550,000 yuan and possessing another 1.61 million yuan he could not account for.
An investigation revealed that from 2005, Zhao had taken advantage of his post and accepted bribes from gardening companies eager to secure the city's greenery contracts. When asked by investigators about how he amassed the sum, Zhou claimed he won 300,000 yuan in a mahjong game. But his "luck" ran out when invoices in which he grossly over-reported tree prices were found.
Banyan-tree scandal
Another invoice for the purchase of seven banyan trees exposed a graft case that led to the downfall of a number of officials in Fangchenggang city, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. According to the People's Daily report, these banyan trees cost a whopping 100,000 yuan each - way higher than their market price.
Zhao Liping, ex-chief of the bureau, reportedly embezzled 1.7 million yuan and took 38,000 yuan in bribes in little more than a year. She was given a jail term of 13 years. Two other cadres and an accountant were penalized for complicity.
Zhong Jian, a local judge, commented that technical issues and lax bidding rules have created room for corruption to thrive in urban greenery. Unlike fixed assets and infrastructure, tree prices vary, with differences in shape and size thwarting a uniform pricing mechanism.
And even though there are rules governing public bidding for tree planting work, these can be easily circumvented. As a result, greenery projects don't always go to the lowest bidders. They may go to those who pay the biggest bribes.
In the past few years, some cities have been in a race to fell their indigenous street trees, mostly plane trees, the lush canopies of which are said to block street lights. In their place, more exotic - and expensive - species are favored. The general principle often is: the more exotic and expensive the better.
Nonetheless, officials sometimes don't bother with the need for follow-up work after they splurge millions on uprooting mature trees and replanting them in new surroundings. Hefei, the capital city of Anhui Province, imported 98 century-old crape myrtle trees from Vietnamese rainforests last December for around 400,000 yuan each. By July, they were all dead.
The removal and transport of trees over long distances also destroy the rural ecological system from which they are uprooted. But they enable some people to line their pockets.
To kill the "worms" feeding on the trees, we need woodpeckers. For every urban greenery project, there must be strict audits of the costs incurred to stamp out corruption.
People's Daily reported last week that as urbanization picks up speed, China's city managers are unusually keen on planting trees. This is not necessarily motivated by environmental awareness, nor suggests that they are fervent tree-huggers.
Planting trees is now a pet project for many officials merely because trees have literally become their personal yao qian shu - a legendary money tree that rains coins if shaken violently. For instance, the expense of a tree-planting scheme worth 600,000 yuan (US$92,025) can be inflated to 1.5 million yuan, the report says.
Many a greedy official has taken to exaggerating the cost of their environmental projects and pocketing the difference.
Zhao Guiqiang, ex-head of a district greenery bureau in Lijiang, Yunnan Province, a scenic city popular with tourists, was recently sentenced to 13 years in prison for taking bribes valued at 550,000 yuan and possessing another 1.61 million yuan he could not account for.
An investigation revealed that from 2005, Zhao had taken advantage of his post and accepted bribes from gardening companies eager to secure the city's greenery contracts. When asked by investigators about how he amassed the sum, Zhou claimed he won 300,000 yuan in a mahjong game. But his "luck" ran out when invoices in which he grossly over-reported tree prices were found.
Banyan-tree scandal
Another invoice for the purchase of seven banyan trees exposed a graft case that led to the downfall of a number of officials in Fangchenggang city, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. According to the People's Daily report, these banyan trees cost a whopping 100,000 yuan each - way higher than their market price.
Zhao Liping, ex-chief of the bureau, reportedly embezzled 1.7 million yuan and took 38,000 yuan in bribes in little more than a year. She was given a jail term of 13 years. Two other cadres and an accountant were penalized for complicity.
Zhong Jian, a local judge, commented that technical issues and lax bidding rules have created room for corruption to thrive in urban greenery. Unlike fixed assets and infrastructure, tree prices vary, with differences in shape and size thwarting a uniform pricing mechanism.
And even though there are rules governing public bidding for tree planting work, these can be easily circumvented. As a result, greenery projects don't always go to the lowest bidders. They may go to those who pay the biggest bribes.
In the past few years, some cities have been in a race to fell their indigenous street trees, mostly plane trees, the lush canopies of which are said to block street lights. In their place, more exotic - and expensive - species are favored. The general principle often is: the more exotic and expensive the better.
Nonetheless, officials sometimes don't bother with the need for follow-up work after they splurge millions on uprooting mature trees and replanting them in new surroundings. Hefei, the capital city of Anhui Province, imported 98 century-old crape myrtle trees from Vietnamese rainforests last December for around 400,000 yuan each. By July, they were all dead.
The removal and transport of trees over long distances also destroy the rural ecological system from which they are uprooted. But they enable some people to line their pockets.
To kill the "worms" feeding on the trees, we need woodpeckers. For every urban greenery project, there must be strict audits of the costs incurred to stamp out corruption.
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