China's move to stop collusion between local government officials and coal
mine owners, a major cause of the country's disturbing number of coal mining
accidents, has achieved "new progress," a senior supervisory official said on
Friday.
To date, 5,357 officials either in government or in State-owned enterprises
have reported investment in coal mines totalling 755 million yuan (US$94.4
million), Vice-Minister of Supervision Chen Changzhi said at a press conference.
Of that money, 709 million yuan (US$88.6 million), or 93.9 per cent, has been
withdrawn, Chen said of the year-long drive by six ministerial departments to
clear the interests of government officials in collieries.
"Disciplinary or criminal penalties have been meted out to those who invested
with money generated through bribery, provided shields for illegal operations in
the collieries or refused to withdraw the illicit investment," he added.
During the first half of this year, localities have dealt with 928 cases,
giving administrative and disciplinary punishment to 270 officials and
transferring 45 others to judicial departments, Chen said.
For example, Li Guojun, vice-director of the Kaiping Branch Bureau of Public
Security in Tangshan, who invested 500,000 yuan (US$62,500) in a local colliery
in July 2002, raked in bonuses totalling 600,000 yuan (US$74,500) by July 2005.
Li's case has been transferred to the judicial department for further
investigation of his role in an accident that killed more than 100 people in a
nearby colliery on December 7 last year, Chen said.
"The ongoing campaign has played an important role in pushing forward an
honest and clean government," Huang Shengchu, president of the China Coal
Information Institute, told China Daily. Moreover, it has helped reduce the
number of accidents after hundreds of thousands of smaller coal mines were shut
down, he noted.
On Tuesday, Li Yizhong, head of the State Administration of Work Safety
(SAWS), reported the number of coal mine accidents in the first eight months of
this year had dropped by 13.6 per cent and the resulting death toll fell by 25.5
per cent compared with the same period last year.
But Huang called for a long-term mechanism to uncover officials investing in
coal pits and prevent them from doing so.
"Huge investment in innovation, safety management and the improvement of
individual protection among miners are also needed in this long-term mechanism,"
he said.
