China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and State Supervision Commission website announced today (January 28) that Zhang Qi, a former member of the Standing Committee of the Hainan Provincial Committee and former secretary of the Haikou Municipal Committee, who was found with a large number of Gold bars at his Home the previous year, had irregularly promoted several island projects and reclaimed large areas in order to “get political achievements and seek promotion as soon as possible”, causing permanent destruction of large coral reefs and white butterfly shells. “
Zhang Qi was investigated in September 2019 for alleged serious disciplinary violations. The announcement said that Zhang Qi is a typical case of “relying on the land to make money”, “sitting on the land to make money”, “using the island to make money”.
The court accused Zhang Qi of abusing his power to “provide assistance” to individuals or companies, through which he received illegal property, a total of 147 million yuan (about NT $461 million) over 14 years, and was sentenced to Life imprisonment at the end of last year. After Zhang Qi’s arrest, 13.5 tons of gold was seized from his home.
The article criticized Zhang Qi, 59, who has worked in Hainan for more than 30 years, for abusing his public power and seeking profits with his power to create land reclamation and illegal development under false pretences, turning land resources into “a cake to be cut wilfully and a tool to make money”.
When Zhang Qi was secretary of the Danzhou Municipal Committee, he illegally promoted the Haihua Island project, which involved a total reclamation area of 783 hectares, and split the reclamation project into 36 projects with an area of less than 27 hectares, leading to the advancement of the prohibited project and the permanent destruction of the sea and coral reefs.
The article also said that Zhang Qi and unscrupulous businessmen with power and interests as a link to form a “common corruption circle”, in the name of investment, to help the leadership of relatives to get land and projects. The same level and subordinates to give favors to pull, but also connived at his wife and children involved in landscaping projects, a large amount of money.
Zhang Qi was once elected as a delegate to the 18th and 19th Congresses of the Communist Party of China, but the news of Zhang Qi’s investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection broke in September 2019, and immediately after the investigation was confirmed in early March last year, he was “doubly fired” and arrested.
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