Beijing -- Buying and selling government jobs has become one of the main causes of government corruption in China, says a former head of the CPC's organization department.

Zhang Quanjing, who headed the department for five years until 1999, says some people will stop at nothing, including murder, to move up the ladder.

"It's appalling to hear that a Chinese official killed his superior in order to get a higher post," Zhang told the Southern Weekly this week.

Zhang, who was in charge of the country's high-level appointments, said since 1982 a new generation of higher-educated, less ideological officials have replaced the older cadres who had earned their jobs fighting for the socialist cause.

"The older senior officials who survived wartime were different than the younger officials who tend think about themselves and are mainly after power, salary, status, housing and medical care. This thinking triggers jealousy and encourages the buying of official posts to get promoted," the South China's Guangzhou-based newspaper quoted Zhang as saying.

Zhang said more open supervision from the party's disciplinary and organization bodies would help stop the practice of buying or selling government posts.

In 2005, 334 CPC officials were criticized for seeking illegal promotions and 97 were punished according to organizational or disciplinary rules, statistics show.