Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng said here Wednesday that the municipal
authorities will draw lessons from the social security fund scandal
and improve government service and responsibility.
The mayor, also acting Communist Party chief of Shanghai, made
the remarks at a panel discussion of legislators from the
metropolis during the annual full session of the National People's
Congress (NPC), China's top legislature.
The municipal government has set the goal of building "a
government of services, a government with responsibility and a
government ruled by law" through better supervision over
administration and the improvement of political system, said
Han.
Han said Shanghai gained good economic and social development
last year with the resolute implementation of the macro-economic
control policies of the central government and with the unswerving
efforts to fight corruption.
"The year of 2007 is of great importance for Shanghai as we are
faced with many chances as well as challenges, even difficulties.
But Shanghai will surely maintain its growth trend in economic and
social development so long as we follow the requirements of the
central government to make renovations in our work," he said.
Involving 3.7 billion yuan (474 million U.S. dollars), the
Shanghai social security fund scandal was revealed to the public
last year. It led to the downfall of over a dozen senior officials
and business people including Chen Liangyu, former secretary of the
Shanghai Municipal Committee of Communist Party of China (CPC), and
Qiu Xiaohua, former head of the National Bureau of Statistics.
The Shanghai CPC Commission for Discipline Inspection and
Shanghai Commission of Supervision announced last week that another
nine Shanghai officials involved in the scandal had been expelled
from the CPC and their governmental posts and they would face
criminal charges.
Mayor Han Zheng said in January this year that the city had
retrieved all the money siphoned from the Shanghai social security
fund for illicit loans and investments last year.
(Xinhua News Agency March 7, 2007)