Housing applicants turn out to be local officials

XI'AN - A local government in Northwest China's Shaanxi province has declared an application list for affordable housing null and void after it caused an uproar and drew wide criticism for favoring government officials.

Meixian county government officials made the decision because 588 of the applicants for the 610 affordable houses were local officials. Only 22 were residents earning low or medium wages.

Shi Yongxiong, director of the Meixian County House Welfare Center, said that the application list for affordable housing online was not the final list and that local government officials had decided to re-examine the qualifications of the applicants.