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THE director of a pioneering international industrial development zone in East China’s Suzhou, Jiangsu province has been placed under investigation for corruption after a whistleblower publicly accused him of taking part in a procurement fraud scheme, according to local authorities.

Zhu Huan, the 44-year-old director of the commerce bureau at the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park, has been suspended as local graft busters investigate him for alleged misconduct, according to an announcement released by local authorities on the official Suzhou Daily’s WeChat account on Friday (Aug 2).

It came six days after Ma Xiangyu, one of the director’s subordinates, went public on Jul 27 to accuse the supervisor of multiple acts of misconduct, garnering national attention on several Chinese social media platforms. Ma particularly highlighted Zhu’s manipulation of government procurement rules to benefit certain bidders over the last several years.

Ma claimed that he initially reported Zhu’s misconduct to local and provincial graft busters as early as February 2023. However, more than a year later, he still had not received any follow-up on an investigation, he told Caixin after going public with the accusations.

In response, on Jul 29, the Suzhou municipal authorities established a task force to investigate the claims and released the initial results on Friday.

The investigation confirmed collusion in the bidding process for five government procurement projects for consulting and other services from 2021 to 2023, worth 8.5 million yuan (S$1.6 million) in total, according to the announcement.

The task force has not yet identified the bidders or Zhu’s role in the procurement fraud cases as the investigation is still ongoing.

But the announcement acknowledged that since Ma’s initial report to local graft busters last year, “relevant authorities and personnel” had failed to strictly and promptly perform their duties to look into the case. The task force pledged to hold those personnel accountable, according to the announcement.

After local authorities released the initial results, Ma told Caixin in an interview that he hoped the case would provide an “opportunity” for all of the civil servants in Suzhou to “serve in accordance with the laws and regulations”.

In his initial report, Ma claimed that Zhu had colluded with three firms during the bidding process to help them win the industrial park’s government contracts since 2020.

Those were two foreign consulting firms, including KPMG International and PricewaterhouseCoopers International, and a local conference and exhibition service provider, MCI Suzhou, according to Ma. The three firms have not publicly commented on the allegations.

Ma also named Lin Xiaoli, a former KPMG employee and now a project manager at PwC, as being involved in the alleged procurement fraud. In a phone interview with Caixin on Jul 28, Lin denied any wrongdoing in the procurement process. She said that Ma’s accusations were “baseless”, adding that the two firms’ strict internal compliance standards will not allow those kind of illegal acts.

China prohibits bidders from colluding with each other in setting prices, and forbids the offering of bribes to those tendering the procurement or any member of the bid evaluation committee.

The Suzhou Industrial Park was established in 1994 as a pioneering project for cooperation between China and Singapore after Beijing launched the “reform and opening-up” policy to boost the nation’s economy in the late 1970s. CAIXIN GLOBAL