A survey conducted by the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Personnel, Ministry of Labor and Social Security and State Council Research Center indicates that the actual income of Chinese communist party officials and administrative officials varies considerably.
The survey shows that 31 provincial administrative regions have violated the 1997 State Council Officials Compensation standards.
According to the report, many local governments established more than 70 categories of unpublished allowances, benefits and bonuses. Places such as Guangdong, Shandong and Hebei provinces set up “a bonus for married officials who don't have or pursue an affair with other women.” Also defined was a bonus for a 40-year-old director, a 45-year-old chief officer and a 50-year-old deputy governor, that if they refrained from abandoning their wives, they would receive a bonus.
The report said that the administrative officials' actual income would be as high as 3.5 times to 20 times that of the local staff's average annual incomes.
Shenzhen section level officials receive annual incomes without benefits of US$12,000. In Shanghai, a bureau level chief officer's annual income without benefits is $25,000 to $35,000. A local laborer in both areas averages $1,875.
These extra allowances and bonuses came from diverted local tax revenue, embezzlement of the national territory development fund, cutting the government engineering project fund, accounting fraud, inflating the number of personnel in the organization, and other devices.
Shandong, Henan, Hebei and Shanxi provinces overstated the number of government employees by nearly 200,000 at provincial and city levels, as well as overstating the number of pensions payable. This resulted in nearly $618 million of excessive fraudulent compensation diverted to government officials.
The report indicated that the staff members of the industrial and commerce, tax affairs, finance, national territory, transportation, police departments, etc., also used their power in collusion with businessmen for money and other favors to accumulate significant wealth. Sixty-five percent to 80 percent of these staff members more than doubled their income this way.
Ninety-seven percent of county level officials exceeded the housing allowance limits. These people paid 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent of the total price to own the residence.
The growing gap between the rich and poor, fueled by local Chinese Communist Party officials and administrators raising their own salaries, and inflated benefits has triggered a wave of instability in China.
