China busts more graft-busters

BEIJING - A former anti-corruption official has been put under investigation for corruption, becoming the latest graft-buster to be busted.

Fang Keyou was deputy chief of the Anhui Provincial discipline inspection team, responsible for supervising local authorities.

Excluding Fang, at least eight discipline officials have been given punishments ranging from warnings to removal from office since the start of November, when China started a new round of anti-corruption inspections targeting key state and party organs.

On Tuesday, it was announced that Jiang Guohe, former head of the discipline committee of the Fujian Energy Group, had been removed from office for involvement in bribery. Jiang is very likely to face prosecution, according to the Communist Party of China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).

Cui Shuyan, head of the disciplinary organ of a branch of PICC, China's largest insurer, was removed from her post for not reporting her and her family members' gaining of permanent residence in Canada, a requirement under Party rules.

Others were formally warned for not performing their supervision duties well. One such guilty part was Pang Huanlei, discipline chief of the Central Conservatory of Music, punished after attending a wedding ceremony for the university principal's daughter. The event broke frugality regulations, and Pang should have stopped it, according to an official statement. The principal also lost his job.

The CPC started sending out inspectors to check up on departments in the 1990s.

However, some inspectors themselves have reportedly abused their positions in many cases, damaging Party credibility and hampering the corruption fight.

Last year, 1,575 discipline officials were punished, and two senior CCDI inspectors were removed from their posts.