Chinese auditors believe 289 million yuan (US$37 million) has been embezzled from funds earmarked for resettling residents displaced by China's landmark Three Gorges Dam project, state press reported yesterday.
The money was allocated in 2004 and 2005 and was to have been used mainly for housing, enterprise construction and job training, the Beijing News said.
Reports have emerged over the years of government funds being embezzled by corrupt local officials and never reaching the residents who had to move to make way for the dam.
Up to 1.4 million people were displaced by the US$22.5 billion dam, the world's largest hydroelectric project, which is designed to generate 84.7 billion kilowatts of electricity per year when it becomes fully operational next year.
Entire cities, thousands of villages and large swathes of farmland were razed to make room for the huge 660km-long reservoir created by the dam.
China allocated about 9.6 billion yuan in resettlement funds in 2004 and 2005, including resettlement assistance for 300,000 more people than originally planned for when the project began more than a decade ago.
By the end of 2004, authorities had discovered 327 cases of embezzlement of resettlement funds with some 55.8 million yuan missing, state press reported earlier.
A Land Resources Bureau official in southwest China's municipalitsy of Chongqing was found guilty in 2005 of stealing 2.8 million yuan that should have been used for compensating farmers who had been resettled because of the construction work.
The official, Du Jiang (杜江), was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, state press reports said at the time.
In China's legal system, such a sentence routinely ends up being commuted to life in jail.
China says the dam is essential as a source of hydropower and to stop the flooding along the Yangtze River that has killed countless people and destroyed farmland for centuries.
Human rights groups, however, have said villagers were forced from their homes, had their traditional lifestyle destroyed and were sent to live in cities against their will.
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