Two officials in S China dismissed for graft

Two officials in south China's Guangdong Province have been expelled from the Communist Party of China (CPC) and dismissed from their public posts for serious disciplinary violations, the provincial discipline watchdog said on Friday.

Investigations found that Zhang Ming, deputy CPC chief of Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology, and Chen Zhizhong, vice president of Southern Medical University, abused their power to seek profits for others and accepted bribes, said a statement.

Both Zhang and Chen "seriously violated discipline" and are suspected of committing crimes, according to the statement. They will be handed over to judicial organs, it added.

Two other high-ranking officials in Guangdong were dismissed from the CPC for graft this week.

On Monday, Li Yongheng, director of the Guangdong Provincial Office of the State Administration of Taxation, and Wu Zhouchun, general manager of Guangdong Power Grid Corporation under the China Southern Power Grid, were removed from their posts for accepting bribes.

Earlier in May, the city discipline inspectorate of Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, banned government city officials from entering public places of entertainment such as nightclubs, private clubs and discos, in a step toward reining in the excesses of greedy officials.

The effort is in line with an ongoing CPC campaign against corruption that targets both "tigers" and "flies" (metaphors for senior and low-ranking corrupt officials).

The CPC's discipline inspection agencies punished about 182,000 officials nationwide in 2013, 13.3 percent more than in 2012.