Prosecutors will clamp down on corruption and dereliction of duty linked to food safety issues, China’s Supreme People’s Prosecutor (SPP) said at a press conference.
Statistics released by the SPP show that between 2011 and 2013, roughly 10,100 people were prosecuted for producing and selling substandard or poisonous food.
According to the SPP, poisonous food products from illegal factories have contained gutter oil, artificial ingredients, and pork from diseased pigs. Such products are abundant on the black market and threaten the health and safety of consumers.
Guan Fujin, vice director of SPP’s anti-corruption bureau, said slack supervision, graft and dereliction of duty among law enforcement officials played a major role in the persistence of food safety crimes.
In 2013, 531 government officials were placed under investigation for abuse of power and dereliction of duty related to food safety.
Last April, Sai Yue and Han Chengwu, the former director and deputy director of Songming county administration of quality and technology supervision, were jailed for accepting bribes offered by an unlicensed food company in exchange for allowing toxic food to be sold. And in 2008, China was rocked by a melamine-tainted milk powder scandal that killed at least six children and sickened 300,000 across the country.
Sources: Global Times, China Daily, Xinhua News (新华网)
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Hui Zhi is a Senior China Analyst with the China Compliance Digest, where a version of this post first appeared.
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