How Much of Shanghai’s Real Estate was Illicitly Obtained by Corrupt Officials?

By chinafreepress.org (translation)
Aug 18, 2009 – 4:20:57 AM

Boxun reports that on Thursday August 13 Shanghai’s Number One Peoples Court heard the case of Pudong District’s Waigaoqiao Area Planning and Construction Department Head Tao Jianguo, who is accused of accepting 14.85 million yuan (US$2.184 million) in bribes.

Tao is 42 years old. From 1999-2008, when Huang Ju, Xu Kuangdi, Chen Liangyu, and Han Zheng oversaw Shanghai and its real estate market was particularly corrupt. In 1998 China’s State Council mandated that the state would stop issuing subsidized housing. But 90 percent of Shanghai workers could not afford the market rate for an apartment. So how did so many Shanghai officials come to own real estate in the ten years from 1999-2008? We estimate that 70 percent of high-level (Department and Assistant Department head and above) Shanghai officials and their families used illicit means to gain housing ownership at well below market rates, and 50 percent of Section Chiefs used the same illicit means.

How much of Shanghai real estate is speculatively owned by officials? This can only be discovered by Shanghai activists using the Internet to report them. Only in this way can these corrupt practices be combatted and ended.

Full Chinese report: http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2009/08/200908181534.shtml