127 Officials Dismissed for Misuse of Land in 1999The Ministry of Land and Resources said Tuesday in Beijing that 127 officials of different levels were fired last year for illegal activities involving land use, doubling the figure of the previous year.Last year, the ministry suggested that 507 local officials be given administrative sanctions for their land-use offenses; so far, 385 of them have received administrative discipline of various kinds. The authorities have stepped up efforts to combat illegal use of land across the country, while the public has become more aware of the importance of protecting land resources, said an official with the law enforcement inspection bureau of the ministry. He blamed some local officials for misunderstanding the relationship between economic development and legal use of land. Many illegal land-use activities involved local governments, he noted. In 1999, a total of 168,000 illegal land-use cases were investigated, involving almost 29,000 hectares of land. The authorities handled over 150,000 cases, dismantled illegal buildings with a floor space of 25.65 million square meters, took over illegal buildings with a floor space of nearly five million square meters, and collected 550 million yuan in fines from the officials responsible. |
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