China today demonstrated how it deals with corruption by sentencing a 70-year-old former senior legislator, identified as Bai Enpei, to death for taking ‘a huge amount of bribes’ and holding excessive assets with unidentified sources.
Enpei was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
Investigation of Enpei for graft began in August 2014. By January 2015, he was expelled from the Communist Party of China by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).
The CCDI investigation found that Bai took advantage of his post to seek profits for others and accepted “a huge amount in bribes.” Thousands of officials at different levels have been punished in the three year long anti-corruption campaign initiated by President Xi.
The former senior legislator becomes the latest official to be punished for graft under a campaign launched by President Xi Jingping.
Enpei was a former senior lawmaker with China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC). He had also served as the head of the provincial committees of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) in Qinghai and Yunnan province, respectively.
As part of his punishment, he has been deprived of political rights for life and had all his personal property confiscated.
This came against the background of the current debate amongst Nigerians over the crackdown on corrupt judges by the Department of State Service (DSS) over similar charge. [myad]
