Global Times published a report on March 18, 2015, disclosing that Liao Yongyuan, Vice Chairman of PetroChina, a subsidiary of Chinese oil giant China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), had resigned on March 17, due to disciplinary investigations. Quoting the newspaper 'Legal Mirror' it said that since the end of 2014, at least 46 people who worked at or were linked to CNPC had been probed over the previous year. Analysts said more senior executives of State-owned enterprises (SOE) may be investigated in the near future.
Many of those being investigated in the petroleum industry are subordinates or proteges of former PBSC member and China's former Security Czar Zhou Yongkang, who is awaiting trial following investigations for graft and misuse of authority and power. Gao Bo, an anti-graft expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that a tightly-knit group of senior executives at CNPC suspected of corruption helped each other to occupy important posts, which contributed to alleged systemic corruption. He said "Collusion between officials and businessmen is a feature that makes corruption in the CNPC distinct from other SOEs."
|
