The municipal people's congress of Shanghai has accepted the resignation from the 10th National People's Congress of the head of the municipal bureau of labor and social welfare.

As of Friday, the 55-year-old senior labor official, Zhu Junyi, is no longer a member of China's top legislature, sources close to the city legislature said.

Zhu was the first bureau chief in Shanghai who resigned as a national legislator.

At the 29th session of the 12th municipal people's congress held on Friday afternoon, city lawmakers also dismissed Zhu from the post of head of the city's labor and social welfare bureau.

Jiang Zhuoqing, former head of the city's Yangpu District, was appointed head of the bureau at the meeting.

Zhu is under investigation on charges of receiving bribes and violating state financial rules, sources close to the city's legislature revealed.

The sources said Zhu was the main culprit in malpractice concerning huge amounts of social welfare funds.

Some other officials with the local labor and social welfare bureau and some businesspeople are also being investigated in the case.

According to observers, the case shows that there are still loopholes in government administration and plenty of room to improve supervision.

Once Zhu's malpractice was detected, Shanghai's supreme court formed a special team in partnership with local public security, industry and commerce, social welfare and financial departments.

The special team is striving to recover all the money lost by Zhu's misdeeds.

Zhu Junyi follows a string of senior officials sacked from national legislator posts over the past several months.

Former publicity minister of the provincial committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) of east China's Fujian Province, Jing Fusheng, had his membership of the National People's Congress terminated earlier this month also for receiving bribes.

In late June, the former vice naval commander, Wang Shouye, had his membership terminated for moral degeneracy and for extorting bribes.

(Xinhua News Agency August 12, 2006)