[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

dam-l "SCMP Dam official 'flees with HK $930m"

South China Morning Post,  Wednesday, May 3, 2000
       
   Dam official 'flees with
               $930m'

JASPER BECKER in Beijing 

In a fresh example of corruption plaguing the massive
Three Gorges Dam project, a senior official suspected of
having siphoned off more than one billion yuan (HK$930
million) of state funds into overseas bank accounts has
gone missing. 

Staff at the Three Gorges Economic Development
Corporation, a subsidiary of the Three Gorges Project
Construction Committee, say they have not been paid for
11 months. The man who has gone missing is manager
Jin Wenchao, who they say spent six years selling official
posts and embezzling money borrowed from state banks
and investment funds. Jin was detained by Beijing police
last year but was later released and has since
disappeared. His son Jin Jiyuan is under investigation by
authorities in Zhengzhou. 

The case, details of which are disclosed in today's South
China Morning Post, follows a report by state auditors
which revealed 470 million yuan was stolen last year.
Since then more than 100 officials have been punished.
However, critics of the project say corruption on a far
greater scale has taken place. 

Dai Lansheng, a top executive at the Three Gorges
Industrial Company, which has carried out two-thirds of
the dam construction, was charged in January with
embezzling billions of yuan by importing hundreds of used
lorries, bulldozers, excavators and loading vehicles instead
of new ones. 

>From 1994 on, Dai allegedly imported a billion yuan's
worth of these products from the United States through a
Hong Kong dealer. But instead of new products, those he
bought were more than 20 years old. Engineers and
workers complained they did not work properly and this
led to costly repairs. 

Dai worked for Qiao Shengxiang, who for 16 years ran
the Gezhouba Corporation that built and operated the
Gezhouba Dam. Some 64km downstream from the Three
Gorges Dam, this was another planning mistake. Instead
of five years, it took two decades to complete and cost
four times the original budget. 

Qiao was fired last March and is under investigation. Dai
worked through a network of officials, up to the central
Government, who were said to have received kickbacks.
Even the education of Qiao's son was paid for out of
public funds. 

Dai controlled all accounts at the Three Gorges Industrial
Corporation and used it like his personal enterprise,
denying access to auditors from the Gezhouba
Corporation. One-third of the US$122 million (HK$946
million) Dai charged to the Three Gorges Industrial
company for second-hand equipment remains
unaccounted for. He claimed to have spent US$9 million
renovating the Gezhouba Hotel but provided no receipts. 

Angered by the corruption, Premier Zhu Rongji has cut
off the Three Gorges Project Development Corporation's
access to direct subsidies and it has instead been largely
relying on issuing domestic bonds. The China
Development Bank is responsible for raising 65 per cent
of funds. 

The dam was approved in 1992 by the National People's
Congress to build the world's biggest hydroelectric station
on the Yangtze River near Chongqing, Sichuan province.
The project, expected to be completed in 2009, will now
cost more than 200 billion yuan and involves the
resettlement of 1.2 to 1.5 million people. 

__________________________________

Doris Shen
International Rivers Network 
1847 Berkeley Way
Berkeley, CA 94703
doris@irn.org   
tel: 510.848.1155 ext. 317      
fax: 510.848.1008
IRN http://www.irn.org
learn how you can help stop Three Gorges Dam http://www.floodwallstreet.org
IRN China Page http://www.hk-sanxia.org