Order to close China's government liaison offices under review: newspaper
BEIJING, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese official has confirmed that an order to close thousands of local government liaison offices in Beijing is being considered, the Beijing Daily reported Tuesday.
Outlook Weekly, a Chinese current affairs magazine, reported Monday that "relevant authorities" had ordered counties, industrial zones, and local government departments to close liaison offices in the capital within six months.
The number of such offices, set up to lobby and make representations to central government and its ministries, are thought to exceed 5,000.
The unnamed official from the department in charge of liaison offices affairs under the Government Offices Administration of the State Council, told Beijing Daily that "most of what had being carried by media was contained in the draft" and "the draft is still under review."
He said the implementation of the order would be "soon", but declined to disclose a timetable.
A liaison rolex replica office official from central Hunan Province, who only identified himself as Li, told Xinhua Tuesday that he had only read the news in the media and was yet to receive any official notice of the order.
Li was the director of a government agency-affiliated liaison office that would be closed down if the report was correct.
Local government liaison officials have reportedly been implicated in corruption cases. Wang Fuyou, former director of the office of Hebei provincial government in Beijing, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002 after being convicted of bribery and misappropriation of public funds.
Wang was entrusted by the provincial government to be in charge of construction projects in Beijing, in which he helped senior officials to get kickbacks in order to win political favors.
Liaison office heads are Human hair extensions also empowered to be in charge of the operations of the office and purchasing of goods, in which the annual spending could amount to millions of yuan.
In another case, in last April, heads of two offices were reprimanded by the municipal governments of Luohe and Xuchang in central China's Henan Province over claims that they spent almost 100,000 U.S. dollars to buy huge amounts of a luxury liquor that turned out to be fake
Beijing has an estimated 52 liaison offices representing the provinces, 520 representing major cities, and roughly 5,000 representing counties. The number of agencies based in Beijing would top 10,000 if those set up by various associations, universities and enterprises were included.
The Outlook Weekly report said that liaison offices of provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions and special economic regions could retain their offices in Beijing, while established city-level liaison offices could be kept only after being approved by provincial governments.
Zhu Lijia, professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said many county-level liaison offices served as reception centers for officials from their localities and deviated from their original functions.
"County affairs are usually coordinated by cities and provinces, and have little direct contact with ministries. That leaves them enough time to remove their liaison offices from Beijing," he s
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