THE former head of the Shenzhen Municipal Water Resources Bureau will be prosecuted soon for allegedly taking bribes and failing to explain the sources of 130 million yuan (US$18.72 million) of his personal wealth, Shenzhen People’s Procuratorate said last week.

    Zhang Qiwen allegedly helped contractors win bids by leaking bidding information, switching bid winners and colluding with experts who were commissioned to evaluate project bidding documents.

    According to a 10-page report by the city’s disciplinary inspection committee released earlier, Zhang allegedly took 11.2 million yuan and HK$1.7 million (US$219,100) from project contractors. He allegedly took his last bribe of HK$1.5 million in exchange for helping a contractor win a water project worth over 9.5 million yuan in January 2014.

    In a written confession, Zhang said that he asked for bribes from contractors saying he needed to buy property and a car for his daughter. He said that over the past few years, he demanded money “safely” from the contractors, based on the “brotherhood” they had.

    At a trial in 2016, a man surnamed Huang, chairman of Shenzhen Jianhengyuan Construction Engineering Co., told the trial’s judges that Zhang had demanded US$300,000 to buy an apartment for his daughter in the U.S.

    Huang got to know Zhang through mutual friends. He gave Zhang HK$500,000 in April 2012 in a hotel in Heyuan City while Zhang was in the city for poverty-relief work. In 2013, Zhang, at the request of Huang, called his subordinate Hu, who was the head of the Shenzhen Water Planning and Design Institute, to help with a water supply project between Tiegang Reservoir and Changliupo. Huang later won the project and gave US$300,000 to Zhang for his help, early media reports said.

    One contractor, surnamed Cai, promised Zhang that he would never expose Zhang. Cai had allegedly given 7.5 million yuan to Zhang in exchange for a project worth 500 million yuan.

    During the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015), the city spent up to 26 billion yuan on water-related projects, but the projects did not solve the river pollution and flood problems in the city. Four rivers that run through Shenzhen all failed pollution tests. The water quality of the Maozhou River is the worst of rivers tested in the province.

    The improvement of Maozhou River’s water quality has already cost 2 billion yuan.

    At a trial in August last year, chairman with Shenzhen Guangsheng Investment and Development Co., surnamed Ye, told judges that he had given 1.18 million yuan in bribes to Zhang in exchange for winning some of the Maozhou River treatment projects.

    Ye’s company undertook some Maozhou River projects that were subcontracted by Cai’s company and made a profit of 12 million yuan. In May 2013, Ye put a box containing 1.18 million yuan in the trunk of Zhang’s car after dinner to “thank Zhang for his help.”  (Han Ximin)