mafia and local government
A story told to me by a source that has first hand knowledge of the situation:
The local government official responsible for the development of the land in our development zone my employer's factory is in decided that a piece of land between my employer's factory and the highway should be developed. At the time the land was owned and cultivated by a farmer. The government offered to buy the land, but the farmer said it was not enough (I'm not starting to guess if the requirements were fair, or exorbitant, but there have been riots around China for similar land acquisitions). The local government wants to develop the land and sell its use to a private individual to build a mall, or retail market of some kind. So since the government couldn't get the farmer to leave they called their friends in the local mafia. The local mafia said they would make the farmers move, however the government had to let the mafia do the grading and filling of the land. The land is quite low and soft so needed to be filled to the same level as the adjacent highway. The local government agreed to give the mafia the grading and filling contract without competition. So using intimidation and threats the mafia got the farmer to move. Then the mafia started filling the land. The problem is that the original agreement was to fill the land to the level of the highway, requiring about 40,000 cubic meters costing about 20 RMB/cubic meter, which my source said is already a better than normal price. Now the fill is complete and the mafia told the government that they had instead filled 80,000 meters of soil creating a increase in the cost including of 1,000,000 RMB (including fees in addition to the soil cost). So now the government is really having a tough time because they have to come up with the extra (taxpayer's) money to pay the difference. There are also questions of if the soil that was used to fill it is actually good soil suitable for building on.
This is especially interesting to me, not because of the proximity to our factory, but becuase I understand that years back there was some trouble acquiring this land. Nowadays we are greeted as we walk into the front door of the factory and in several office with a wavy floors, and huge cracks in the walls of this three year old factory. I wonder what kind of foundation I'm sitting on.
The local government official responsible for the development of the land in our development zone my employer's factory is in decided that a piece of land between my employer's factory and the highway should be developed. At the time the land was owned and cultivated by a farmer. The government offered to buy the land, but the farmer said it was not enough (I'm not starting to guess if the requirements were fair, or exorbitant, but there have been riots around China for similar land acquisitions). The local government wants to develop the land and sell its use to a private individual to build a mall, or retail market of some kind. So since the government couldn't get the farmer to leave they called their friends in the local mafia. The local mafia said they would make the farmers move, however the government had to let the mafia do the grading and filling of the land. The land is quite low and soft so needed to be filled to the same level as the adjacent highway. The local government agreed to give the mafia the grading and filling contract without competition. So using intimidation and threats the mafia got the farmer to move. Then the mafia started filling the land. The problem is that the original agreement was to fill the land to the level of the highway, requiring about 40,000 cubic meters costing about 20 RMB/cubic meter, which my source said is already a better than normal price. Now the fill is complete and the mafia told the government that they had instead filled 80,000 meters of soil creating a increase in the cost including of 1,000,000 RMB (including fees in addition to the soil cost). So now the government is really having a tough time because they have to come up with the extra (taxpayer's) money to pay the difference. There are also questions of if the soil that was used to fill it is actually good soil suitable for building on.
This is especially interesting to me, not because of the proximity to our factory, but becuase I understand that years back there was some trouble acquiring this land. Nowadays we are greeted as we walk into the front door of the factory and in several office with a wavy floors, and huge cracks in the walls of this three year old factory. I wonder what kind of foundation I'm sitting on.
posted by Israel Holby at 5:33 PM
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