5 punished over civil servant application scandal

TAIYUAN - Five people, including two officials, in North China's Shanxi province were handed jail sentences on Wednesday for their roles in a scandal that saw a civil servant candidate's physical examination records falsified.

The Suburb People's Court of Changzhi City sentenced Zhao Bo, former vice director of the city's human resources and social security bureau, to 11 years in jail for taking 100,000 yuan ($15,890) to disqualify candidate Song Jiangming in order to ensure that the runner-up candidate would be recruited ?during the city's civil servant recruitment last year.

Song, though taking the top rank in both the written examination and job interview for the local environmental protection bureau's civil service test, was eliminated at the last minute over claims that he had not passed the blood test. He was recruited by the bureau after the truth was ascertained.

Follow-up investigations showed the results of Song's blood test were tampered with in order to disqualify him.

The court also sentenced Ji Xinrui, another former local human resource official, to 18 months in jail after he was convicted of accepting a bribe of 17,000 yuan for the same purpose as Zhao.

Jia Zhihong, who offered the bribes to Zhao and Ji and was also the father of the runner-up candidate, was jailed for 18 months with a respite of two years.

Han Yumei and Yang Wenfang, two former practitioners of the physical test department under a local hospital assigned to handle the candidates' physical exams, respectively received sentences of one-year imprisonment and six months' imprisonment with a respite of a year, after they were found responsible for altering Song's blood test results as Zhao had required.

Zhao, Ji and Han decided to lodge an appeal at the court.

The scandal aroused an outcry after being exposed on the Internet. China's employment situation in recent years has become increasingly grim and civil servant jobs, which the public consider decent and stable positions, have become highly sought-after.

The extremely competitive annual National Public Servant Exam, which includes an aptitude test and a written policy essay, attracted 1.33 million applicants in November 2011 for 18,000 vacancies around the country.