According to a recent report of China’s National Audit Office (NAO), there has been concern that corrupt officials misused earthquake relief funds in Sichuan, one of China's southwestern provinces struck by an earthquake on May 12, 2008, leaving more than 87,000 people dead or missing. Hong Kong media also reported similar concerns of misuse of relief money, false disaster reports and corruption of local officials. Some Chinese scholars commented that the brazen corruption of Chinese local officials results from the lack of grassroots and media supervision in China’s political system, and proves that top-down efforts alone cannot effectively combat corruption.
By the end of November 2008, the NAO had received a total of 1962 reports of cases of corruption, and transferred 146 of them to the discipline inspection and auditing departments with 162 people involved, according to China’s State media, Xinhua News Agency.
Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported that local officials exaggerated earthquake losses, with the most serious falsifications made by Chongzhou City Tourism Bureau and the Department of Transportation that reported duplicate data in order to obtain additional relief money of up to 1.23 billion yuan (US$ 180 million). In addition, some governmental departments delayed significantly the distribution of relief funds and goods to the victims of the disaster.
Hu Xingdou, a professor at Beijing University of Science and Technology, said that local officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) even dared to seize earthquake relief money, a clear indication that the corruption of the CCP has reached a very serious point.
Hu said, "The extent of corruption in today’s China is really shocking, generating a decline of related social moral standards. Therefore, we should analyze the misuse of the earthquake relief funds from political and moral aspects. The regime’s failure to emphasize media scrutiny or public supervision has resulted in ignorance of the law on the part of local officials. "
Tan Zuoren, a member of a non-governmental environmental protection organization, recently returned from the earthquake-stricken area after a 10-day visit. The South China Morning Post reported his observation that people very often have complained about the unfairness of the distribution of the relief funds and materials, and generally expressed their hatred for CCP officials.
Tan said, "Everyday when we were in the quake-stricken areas, dozens of people came to us to complain that some local cadres chose the best clothing from the disaster relief donations for themselves, while for ordinary people some adults could only get clothing for children."
Hu pointed out that one of the reasons for the local Chinese officials’ corruption and lawlessness is that their chance of being caught is very small, but he also noted that especially in 2008, people did expose a number of cases of corruption through the Internet. However, he feels that in the absence of freedom of the press, the corruption of CCP local officials cannot be eradicated or even constrained.
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