On April 7, a blogger on a popular Chinese website exposed corruption by disclosing a document filed by the Resettlement Office of Wenzhou City, an affluent city in southern China. The document listed the names of people who had purchased apartment units from the Resettlement Office at a specially discounted price. The list included 49 members of the Resettlement Office staff and 94 officials or staffers in the municipal government. The document was rapidly spread on the Internet.
Resettlement Offices in China are notorious for forced relocation and collective corruptions. The situation in Wenzhou is not uncommon. The apartments the so-called outsiders bought were actually the best units in the best locations. Many of the families who were relocated due to building demolition have not been resettled.
Reporters from the Southern Metropolis Daily visited some of the units on April 8. They found that some of the residents are the relatives of the officials listed in the document.
