The government of China warned earlier that people who were found guilty of polluting the environment will have to face heavy penalties. On July 16, 2013, courts across South China?s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region jailed 13 people in a case which involves heavy metal pollution in a river in the region in 2012.
Surprisingly enough, out of those 13 people, three of them were environmental inspectors who failed to perform their duties and allowed plants to avoid pollution inspections. The inspectors in question also ignored industrial discharge which contained cadmium into the river Longjiang in April 2011. The former vice director of the city?s environmental protection bureau, Zeng Juefa was sentenced by the Dahua County court in Heichi City to four and a half years in prison for delinquency and taking bribes.
Even the former heads of a district environmental inspection team under the environmental protection bureau of Jinchengjiang District, Hechi City, Lan?Qunfeng and?Wei Yi were also handed jail terms of three years and six months for the same charges as Zeng.
The court said that Zeng took bribes worth 45,000 yuan and Lan and Wei took bribes of 20,000 yuan in every case. None of the bribers were specified.
