Caixin, a provider of financial and business news and information, based in Beijing, reported that an inquiry into Su Shulin, the governor of Fujian Province, was linked to corruption allegations made during an audit of Sinopec, a state-owned oil company.
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the Communist Party’s anti-graft agency, said on October 7 that it is probing Su Shulin, 53, for serious violations of discipline, a euphemism for corruption.
Su was the first governor placed under investigation after the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. He was the fifth official removed from office who had served as the General Manager in China’s top two state-owned oil companies, Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).
The government is looking into US$10 billion worth of offshore oil investments that Sinopec made in Angola. Those investments have yielded little oil or revenue. It is not known whether Su’s problems are linked to the losses from those deals.
One person who was briefed about the inquiry into Su said the CCDI investigators questioned Su after authorities announced, in July 2014, that they were investigating former security tsar Zhou Yongkang over corruption allegations.
Zhou is serving a life sentence for taking bribes, abuse of power and leaking state secrets. He spent more than three decades in the oil and gas industry, rising to general manager of CNPC. Zhou became a member of the Party’s powerful Politburo Standing Committee in 2007, overseeing the country’s domestic security apparatus.
Several of Zhou’s former aides or associates, including Jiang Jiemin, former head of the CNPC, have gotten in trouble for graft since President Xi Jinping launched a major anti-corruption drive late in 2012.
Source: Caixin, October 9, 2015
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