Corrupt official under fire again

Former Party chief of Jingle county, Shanxi Province, was reassigned as a deputy director of the environmental protection bureau of Xinzhou in the province, just two months after he was removed from his post due to disciplinary problems in January 2012.

The official website of the bureau shows that Yang Cunhu, deputy director, get a new position in March 2012. An administrative staffer with the bureau confirmed to the Global Times Tuesday that Yang came to the position last year, but said the details of the reassignment were not clear.

Yang was removed from his position as Party chief of Jingle county after it was revealed that his daughter, Wang Ye, was paid 100,000 ($16,066) yuan over five years by the Shanxi Center for Disease Control and Prevention (SXCDC) while attending a local Chinese medicine college.

The center also paid her college tuition, according to China News Service.

The CPC Shanxi Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection refused to provide any information about Yang's case to the Global Times.

Wang and SXCDC were also required by the provincial government to be put under investigation, but a staffer surnamed Zhang with the center told the Global Times that he doesn't know any details of the investigation.

Yang is a representative of many officials who are removed from their posts, but are reassigned to other agencies after their case fades from public attention.

Netizens expressed rage over Yang's reassignment, saying that quickly reappointing "tainted" officials has turned the country's anti-corruption campaign into a joke.

"Lower level officials must improve their legal awareness, and stop believing that their faults can be covered by a new job," Wang Peng, a Beijing-based lawyer, said Tuesday.

Xu Xianglin, professor of the School of Government with Peking University, told the Global Times that sacked officials are not forbidden from taking new positions after correcting their faults, unless they have committed crimes or have serious moral or discipline problems which directly caused the accident.

"But there must be transparency in the investigation and reappointment. This is often ignored or hard for the public to find," Xu said.

The corruption investigation of Yang Dacai, former director of the Bureau of Work Safety of Shaanxi Province, another official who drew wide public criticism and was sacked last year, has yet to be made public.