China says 43 officials punished over quake relief

Supervision Minister Ma Wen, also the head of the NationalBureau of Corruption Prevention, said the punishments weremeted out after more than 1,000 complaints from the publicfollowing the 7.9 magnitude quake in southwest China, whichkilled almost 70,000 people.

Most of the complaints "were about misuse of tents ininitial disaster relief efforts and the improper distributionof food and other goods", she told a news conference.

"Others were about officials reacting slowly or issuing aidin a detrimental way," Ma added.

One of the officials caught was the deputy head of thelocal assembly in Anyang, a city in the poor central provinceof Henan, for buying substandard relief goods, she said, addinghe had been fired.

Officials not dismissed were given administrative demerits,meaning they were either demoted or had a black mark putagainst their name limiting future promotions.

The government has previously warned it would come downhard on anyone who stole, misappropriated or misused thebillions of yuan in aid which has flowed to the southwestfollowing the earthquake.

China has a serious problem with corruption, so serious theCommunist Party has warned it threatens its rule. Barely a weekgoes by without some lurid new story of graft appearing in thenormally staid state-run media.

Deputy Finance Minister Liao Xiaojun, told the same newsconference that government departments would be required totighten their belts after the central government said it wouldcut the budget to divert more funds to helping quake victims.

"We have demanded that departments hold fewer meetings orshorten meeting times, cut down on business travel, useofficial cars less and economise on water, electricity and fuelusage," Liao said.

Last month, Premier Wen Jiabao ordered all governmentdepartments to cut this year's budgeted spending by 5 percentto help fund some 70 billion yuan (5.2 billion pounds) in quakerelief and reconstruction.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jerry Norton)