Du Shicheng, former deputy secretary of the Shandong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), has been expelled from the Party for taking huge bribes and leading a dissolute life.

 

Du, also former secretary of the Qingdao Municipal CPC Committee in Shandong, an economically thriving region where the 2008 Beijing Olympics yachting events will take place, was previously fired for the "serious discipline violation.”

 

The Party's discipline watchdog, the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), took on Du's case last December. He and his mistress are accused of taking bribes worth millions of yuan, according to the CCDI.

 

"Du's abuse of public power, bribe-taking and dissolute lifestyle seriously violated Party guidelines," it said.

 

The expulsion was reviewed by the CCDI standing committee and submitted to the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, where it was ultimately approved.

 

The CCDI said the Party sanctions will be endorsed by a plenary meeting of the CPC Central Committee, and then Du's case will be dealt with in a court of law.

 

Du was born in March 1950 in Longkou, Shandong and joined the CPC in December 1972. His former posts include head of the Yantai Municipal CPC Committee and mayor of Yantai, another booming coastal city in Shandong.

 

The CPC Central Commission began investigating Du's misdeeds after receiving reports from the public during a routine inspection last year.

 

Liu is the latest in a series of high-ranking officials to fall from grace in China's fight against corruption.

 

The Party expelled 21,120 members last year for breaking its rules, mainly for their involvement in corruption scandals, according to the CCDI.

 

Its annual report said 2,744 corrupt officials, out of the nearly 100,000 Party members punished last year were removed from their posts.

 

Another 8,777 CPC members were put on probation to determine whether they should retain their Party membership, said the report.

 

Gan Yisheng, vice secretary of the commission, earlier said 97,260 CPC members were punished last year for corruption. The punishments extended to prosecution for 3,530 cadres, seven of whom were at or above the level of minister or governor.

 

Gan said members who failed to abide by the Party's rules or made grave errors accounted for only 0.14 percent of the Party's 70 million members.

 

Liu Fengyan, another CCDI vice secretary, said during an exclusive interview with Xinhua on Thursday that the Party's discipline watchdog has intensified the fight against corruption this year and is continuing to build a "clean" Party.

 

Sources from the CCDI said they were going to intensify routine inspections and dispatch more inspection teams to dig out local official corruption cases. Last year, an inspection team from the commission found several pieces of evidence related to Du's corruption in Shandong and busted a series of big bribery cases.

 

(Xinhua News Agency April 27, 2007)