Investigators have found evidence that nearly $30m of funds budgeted for China’s Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway line was misappropriated last year, in another blow to the country’s scandal-plagued high-speed rail sector.
China’s state audit office said on Wednesday it had identified numerous cases of embezzlement and other irregularities from just a three-month period of construction on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed line last year and has passed the cases on to judicial authorities for formal investigation.
China’s railway minister and the rail ministry’s deputy chief engineer were both removed from their positions last month for “severe disciplinary violations” – an allegation that usually results in criminal charges for corruption.