China's central government has dispatched a team of inspectors
to some provinces in an attempt to put a stop to local government
land grabs.
The Ministry of Land and Resources is targeting the municipal
governments of Beijing and Xiamen, the northern province of Hebei
and the southeastern province of Fujian.
"Empowered by the State Council, the inspectors will supervise
local land use and administration and advise local governments to
correct irregularities," said Gan Zangchun, the country's deputy
land inspector-general.
However, the inspectors are not authorized to exert authority
over local officials or interfere in their work, according to
Gan.
The central government approved the establishment of a national
inspection system to strengthen its control of local land use in
July. The move came in response to increasing discontent in rural
areas over arable land being expropriated by local governments for
development.
"The system will make sure the central government's
macro-control policies are effectively implemented by local
governments," said Cheng Chengbiao, director of the planning office
with the Department of Land and Resources of Fujian Province.
In the first 11 months of the year, China saw real estate
investment rise 24 percent on the previous year to 1.64 trillion
yuan (US$205 billion).
The government has issued new laws which will come into effect
on January 1, 2007 and regulate land sales, raise land use taxes
and compensation for people who have lost their land, and order
land administrators to double fees for new construction
projects.
However, local governments often help companies to get round the
macro-control policies, lending their support to illegal investment
projects in pursuit of economic growth.
Since 1999, local government involvement has been responsible
for 20 percent of the country's illegal land use cases, involving
60 percent of the total land area which has been exploited
illegally.
The central government has sent officials to 12 provinces to
whip local governments into line and defiant local officials have
been criticized and punished.
Earlier this month, a land official in Zhengzhou, capital of
central China's Henan Province, was sentenced to five years in
prison for taking bribes and approving irregular land deals.
In September, a senior official from Henan Province was
sanctioned for failing to stop the construction of an unapproved
university campus occupying nearly 1,000 hectares of land in
Zhengzhou, the provincial capital.
In August, the central government criticized the Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Regional Government for failing to put a stop to an
unauthorized power station project.
"The efforts have contained the increase of large-scale illegal
land use and development, but have yet to reverse the trend," said
Chang Jiaxing, vice director of the Bureau of Law Enforcement and
Supervision with the Ministry.
"The situation will be improved remarkably if the inspection
system can curb the unlawful practices of local governments," said
Chang.
(Xinhua News Agency December 18, 2006)