A court in Guangzhou ruled that the Family Planning Commission of Guangdong Province — China’s most populous — must disclose the specifics of its own accounting data within 15 days.
Across China an estimated 2 trillion yuan ($320 billion) in social maintenance fees have been paid since 1980, according to one study. Family Planning Commission of Guangdong Province will make up about 4-8% of that total.
Last year, for example, Guangdong’s Family Planning Commission claimed to have collected 1.456 billion yuan ($235 million) in “social compensation fees.” The province’s Department of Finance, on the other hand, reported that collections amounted to 2.613 billion yuan ($421 million).
The problem, according to Chinese media reports, is that quite a bit of that revenue doesn’t seem to land in government treasuries. In rural Yunnan Province, for example, audits suggest that in one county as little as 10.18% of social compensation fees flowed into government coffers.
In contemporary China, nothing signals the end of a government career — even a powerful one — quite like a full public accounting of one’s finances.
If the Family Planning Commissions are being through the audit and anti-corruption ringer then it could signal the complete breaking of the Family Planning Commission and more rapid policy shifts away from the One Child Policy. If the vested interests collecting fees are broken then there will be less resistance to shifting away from the One Child Policy.
Chinese authorities have seized assets worth at least 90 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) from family members and associates of retired domestic security tsar Zhou Yongkang, who is at the centre of China’s biggest corruption scandal in more than six decades.
More than 300 of Zhou’s relatives, political allies, proteges and staff have also been taken into custody or questioned in the past four months, the sources, who have been briefed on the investigation.
The party’s anti-corruption watchdog had frozen bank accounts with deposits totaling 37 billion yuan and seized domestic and overseas bonds and stocks with a combined value of 51 billion yuan after raiding homes in Beijing, Shanghai and five provinces.
Investigators had also confiscated about 300 apartments and villas worth around 1.7 billion yuan, antiques and contemporary paintings with a market value of 1 billion yuan and more than 60 vehicles, the sources added. Other items seized included expensive liquor, gold, silver and cash in local and foreign currencies.
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