The Telegraph reports on a corruption probe in Namibia which involves a Chinese company headed until last year by Hu Jintao’s son, Hu Haifeng, 38:
The investigation centres on a £34 million deal Namibia signed with Nuctech to provide it with scanners for its ports and airports.
Under the deal, the Namibian government was to make a £8 million down payment, with the balance coming from a loan Beijing has provided Namibia, on condition that it is spent with Chinese companies.
But according to Namibia’s Anti-Corruption Commission, within weeks of the ministry of finance making its payment to Nuctech, the company signed contracts for an identical sum with a Namibian consultancy called Teko Trading.
See also reports from AllAfrica.com and Mail and Guardian.
The Telegraph reports in another story that NucTech is also in trouble with the European Union after Smiths Group, one of Britain’s largest engineering firms, accused it of illegal dumping:
Smiths claimed NucTech was using the enormous resources of the Chinese government to lower prices allegedly “to a degree that precludes free and open competition.” It claimed the market had become “fatally distorted” and urged the European Commission to “act firmly and restore commercial credibility” to the market. The Commission said it was in the middle of a “full investigation”.
It is unclear whether Mr Hu has been formally questioned by the Commission, but he has recently resigned his directorship of NucTech although he is the Communist Party secretary of a holding company that oversees NucTech, alongside a number of other companies.
Read more about Hu’s NucTech in this 2007 Washington Post article and this 2006 Forbes article.
