Court Cases Related to Relocation Project in Three Gorges Dam AreaTwo courts in Chongqing Municipality in southwest China have handled over 1,600 cases related to the massive resettlement of residents affected by the Three Gorges dam project since construction of the project started in 1993.An official in charge of the municipality's No. 2 Intermediate People's Court said that cases related to the relocation project were up 70 percent a year. Since 1995, 106 people on charges of misappropriating and embezzling government funds allocated for resettling affected people in the massive Three Gorges project have been brought before the courts. Wang Sumei, a cashier of the Wanzhou Resettlement Bureau, was sentenced to death on charges of spending 1.26 million yuan of government funds on gambling. Some 473 million yuan of funds earmarked for the Three Gorges Resettlement Project have been misappropriated in the past few years. Official figures show that the central government allocated over 17.6 billion yuan for resettlement purpose in the Three Gorges Project by 1999. The relocation project will involve 1.13 million people in 20 counties and prefectures by 2009 when the Three Gorges Project is completed. |
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