Corruption among local officials and even the industry's safety watchdog must be tackled if the country is to improve its grim coal mine safety record, a cabinet minister has said.

"Corruption is one major reason why accidents happen again and again," said Li Yizhong, minister of the State Administration of Work Safety. "Nepotism has allowed lax safety supervision."

Li demanded his administration take iron-handed measures to stop corruption and misconduct among safety inspectors and local officials.

"It's high time we took a careful look at connections between coal mine owners, local officials and the safety watchdog, these links have set up barriers against strict safety supervision," he said.

Co-operating with provincial and local safety watchdogs, Li's administration regularly performs safety inspections at China's 28,000 coal mines.

After each round of inspections the watchdog announces a list of mines which should be shut down because of poor safety conditions.

"But it's usual that they will start work again after the inspection team has left," said Li.

One recent example took place in Central China's Hunan Province. On May 27, Li's administration ordered the Zijiang Coal Mine in Loudi city to stop mining because of poor safety conditions. With backing from the local officials, the mine refused to stop production.

Just 10 days later, a sudden release of gas killed 22 miners. "If an explosion had taken place, the death toll would have been even higher," said Li.

The coal mine used to be State-owned but was later transferred to a private owner, who has been detained partly because he did not have a safety certificate.

The Zijiang mine is not alone. In the city of Loudi, a campaign to shatter the protective umbrella offered to local coal mine owners by corrupt officials was launched last year.

In the city's Lianyuan County, 10 local officials were found to have connections to mines and have been punished according to the law.

Huang Shengchu, president of the China Coal Information Institute said a nationwide blanket inspection is necessary to stamp out nepotism.

"Many accidents have resulted from this kind of connection," said Huang.

Many cities and counties in China rely on income from coal mines to swell their coffers, and it's easy for local governments and coal mines to reach a compromise on safety management, said Huang.

One typical example happened in Heilongjiang Province's city of Qitaihe where the owner of an illegal coal mine in which 18 miners died turned out to be the local official in charge of mine safety.

Peng Guocai, deputy head of the district safety watchdog, allowed his mine to operate despite an obvious lack of basic ventilation and necessary gas monitoring equipment.

On Monday, five central departments jointly issued a circular, requiring local areas to "severely punish" corrupt officials.

Coal mine disasters killed 2,187 people in the first five months, up 9.7 percent over the same period last year, according to official figures.

(China Daily June 23, 2005)