County official detained for abuse of power

A local official in Henan province was detained on July 27 for abuse of power that resulted in the reduction of about 100 million kg wheat output, People's Daily Online reported.

Liu Huihe, deputy director of the agricultural bureau in Fangcheng county, was charged by the local procuratorate with abusing his power to help his wife, head of a local grain cooperative, sell a variety of wheat seeds.

According to the local procuratorate, Liu required local agricultural officials to promote a variety of seeds in the name of the county agricultural bureau and subsidized 10 yuan ($1.60) for each bag of the seeds.

However, the variety of seeds was not among the 15 varieties of wheat seeds recommended by the agricultural bureau of Nanyang, which administers Fangcheng, in May 2012.

The grain cooperative of Liu's wife bought 25,000 kg of the variety of wheat seeds in August.

People's Daily reported on July 18 that the wheat output of the county dropped from 468 million kg in 2012 to 350 million kg in 2013 due to the incident.

Liu claimed that he promoted the variety of wheat seeds after a harvest in a three-year-long trial.