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New | Corruption probes net Guangdong's top science officials: reports

More than 50 people working in the scientific field are implicated in graft cases, report says

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LED lights seen in a showroom. A top science deputy in Guangdong is being investigated for allegedly misusing an LED industry fund. Photo: Reuters

Numerous senior science officials in Guangdong, including the deputy chief of the province’s science bureau, are implicated in corruption cases – with one report saying more than 50 of them are being investigated, highlighting how Xi Jinping’s anti-graft drive is widening its net beyond politics, business and the academe.

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Wang Kewei, former deputy director of the Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Department, is facing a corruption probe, Guangdong’s committee of discipline inspection announced on Friday.

The case against Wang, who was in charge of the industry-university research department, centres on allegations that he dipped his fingers into the light-emitting diode (LED) industry development fund, to which Guangdong allocated 450 million yuan (HK$576 million) under the 12th Five-Year Plan, reported.

Last month, Wang’s former boss, science department director Li Xinghua, was sacked by the party for corruption.

The newspaper said that so far, more than 50 officials in the science and technology system were implicated in graft cases.

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In Guangdong’s capital city, Guangzhou, the municipal procuratorate last week revealed that it investigated 29 people working in the science field implicated in 25 corruption cases involving a total of 50 million yuan.

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