Officials punished over illegal buildings

Hebei province has punished about a dozen officials involved in illegal building projects in Shijiazhuang and Baoding cities. The projects were exposed to the public in the media earlier this year.

The punishments were disclosed in a notice on Friday by the Hebei Committee of the Communist Party of China and provincial government, according to official news website hebnews.cn.

Most of the 13 officials, including deputy mayors of prefecture-level cities and county-level Party chiefs, were given warnings or severe warnings within the Party for failing to perform their duties to stop the illegal acquisition of land and subsequent construction projects.

Warnings and severe warnings are two of the five forms of disciplinary action against Party members.

In February, residential buildings on a mountain slope in Shijiazhuang's Luquan district were reported to have been built and sold without authorization.

After the matter was reported, Wang Dongfeng, secretary of the committee, demanded an immediate and thorough investigation and punishment for anyone involved in violations of the law or regulations.

The investigation found that 27 buildings covering 34,700 square meters had been built on illegally acquired land, and 9,833 square meters of land of the project were within the red line of a protected ecological area, the notice said.

The buildings have now been demolished and the land has been cleaned up.

Zhou Yonghui, executive deputy mayor of Xingtai, Hebei, was removed from his position for abuse of power. He was involved in transferring the right to use State-owned land to the project during the time he worked in Luquan between 2006 and 2016, thepaper.cn reported.

Three other illegal construction projects in Baoding's Xushui and Mancheng districts and in Laishui county were also investigated and dealt with.

More than 100 wooden houses built for a tourism project were demolished and nearly 200 residential apartments without presale permits were taken back from buyers.

The notice said that comprehensive inspection and rectification will be carried out throughout the province, especially in key areas such as natural reserves, scenic areas, protected drinking water sources and red line areas designated for ecological protection.