VILLAGERS in Longgang District found new evidence after they accused their village head of being involved in illegal activities.
Villagers from Xinbu Village said they had found several leases signed by the village head, Ye Guanxin, also the president of Xinbu Branch Co. of Tongle Holdings Co. Ltd., with extremely low rent and long terms. They suspected him of taking bribes for providing the land at extremely low rent, Southern Metropolis Daily reported. Ye has denied the allegation.
In one of the contracts signed in 1999, Ye let a 11,980-square-meter area of industrial land to Shenzhen Jiacan Holdings Co. Ltd. for only 718,800 yuan (US$109,828), for a term of 60 years.
The newspaper found, however, that the company s registration had been canceled. Ye said the company might have changed its name, but he was definitely not associated with it.
Shenzhen Daily previously reported villagers suspicions that Ye rented out a 14,000-square-meter area of land for only 0.1 yuan per square meter for 50 years in exchange for personal favors, including a 700,000-yuan car and a 30,000-yuan monthly income from the leaseholders.
They said the village s financial affairs had never been made public after Ye became the village head and they knew nothing about the financial reports or land use. Their incomes were also lower than in neighboring areas due to the low rent.
However, Ye said he rented out the land at low prices in the hope of increasing villagers incomes. At the time, land in Xinbu was worth nothing and we were afraid it might be taken over by the government, so we had to rent it out at low prices quickly, he said.
Villagers had already reported the matter to the Tongle Subdistrict Office, which oversees the village. Subdistrict Party chief, surnamed Cao, said they were already investigating whether Ye had taken bribes from the leaseholders. But one thing is for sure: he did not get approval from all village shareholders when signing the contracts, Cao said.
According to regulations, the maximum duration for renting out village land is 20 years, so the contracts with durations of 50 or 60 years were invalid and villagers could ask for the contracts to be canceled through legal channels, said Li Jun, a lawyer from the Guangdong Guohui Law Firm.
(Wang Yuanyuan)
