The appearance of Tieben project is like a process of "blowing bubbles". In 2002, in just a few months of planning, Tieben project gradually expanded from the initial 2 million tons wide plate project to 4 million tons and 6 million tons, and finally became a large-scale iron and steel joint project with an annual output of 8.4 million tons, and the planned land occupation also climbed from 2,000 mu to 9,379 mu.
According to the investigation, from May 2002 to the end of 2003, Tieben Company was suspected of falsely registering seven joint venture (sole proprietorship) companies. According to the regulations, the foreign investors of these seven joint ventures should pay the registered capital of 654.38+79.72 million USD, but only the registered capital of Lianying Company 1 20,000 USD is basically in place, and another1company is partially in place. So far, the remaining five joint ventures have not seen the capital verification report and no funds have been put in place.
Tieben Company initially sought to relocate and expand in Changzhou Port, but there was not enough land available there. In May 2002, Dai Guofang and Zhang Xiqing came to the government of Weicun Town, Xinbei District, Changzhou City to talk about this project. The town found the project attractive and promised to solve the land problem. The two sides hit it off. Later, they came to Xilaiqiao Town, Yangzhong City, just across the Jiajiang River from Weicun Town. Tieben Company took a fancy to the coastline of the Yangtze River with a depth of 14m here, and then negotiated with the town to build a wharf and a stone factory.
However, the project in Xilaiqiao Town has not been approved by the superior planning department. According to Tieben's understanding, there will be no output value and tax for the self-provided wharf. In order to improve its attractiveness, they also proposed to transfer the coking and silicon steel projects in Weicun Town, Changzhou City to Xilaiqiao Town, Yangzhong City. In this way, the planned land for the project in Yangzhong City has increased from 500 mu to more than 3,000 mu. Local governments and relevant departments are "offside"
Iron and steel projects are key industrial projects under the macro-control of the state, and there is a relatively standardized examination and approval mechanism. It can be said that whether the project can be approved is the key to the launch of Tieben project.
Since May 2002, Dai Guofang, the legal representative of Tieben Company, has set up seven joint venture (sole proprietorship) companies to implement the project, and 22 projects have been submitted to relevant departments for approval. However, it is such a project with a serious mismatch between design capacity and investment, but it is "green light all the way" in the approval process.
In order to avoid the approval of higher authorities, Tieben Company and local governments have racked their brains. During the examination and approval process, the management committee of Changzhou National Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone (hereinafter referred to as Hi-tech Zone) divided the whole project into four parts. At the same time, in order to handle the land formalities, the whole project is divided into 14 infrastructure projects.
Wang Haiping, director of the Economic Development Bureau of the High-tech Zone, said: "We also felt abnormal during the examination and approval. If these projects are submitted for approval together, it must be ultra vires. "
The office meeting of the director of Changzhou High-tech Zone Management Committee specially studied the promotion of Tieben project and asked relevant departments to complete the project approval quickly. An informed cadre said: "At that time, many project promotion meetings were held in the district, demanding that the examination and approval procedures be accelerated. If the project is not split, it will be reported to the superior, and it will not be approved in a year or so. " According to the reporter's investigation, the High-tech Zone Management Committee approved 12 infrastructure projects split by Tieben only in one day in September 2003. At the same time, Yangzhong City set up a leading group of Tieben Project headed by the main leaders of the Municipal Party Committee and attended by the heads of various functional departments, and successively held a promotion meeting of Tieben Project.
According to the investment scale and examination and approval authority, the Tieben project should have been submitted to the relevant departments of the State Council for examination and approval. However, local governments and relevant departments have approved these projects with a total investment of 654.38+0.059 billion yuan in violation of regulations.
—— In September 2002, the High-tech Zone Management Committee approved Tieben Company and Lianying Company to split the project with a total investment of nearly 90 million US dollars into three projects with a total investment of 29.8 million US dollars: ironmaking, steelmaking and steel rolling; In order to declare the project land to the provincial land department, from August to June, 2003 10, the high-tech zone split the construction projects of four affiliated enterprises of Tieben Company into 12 projects with initial approval.
—— From April to June, 2003, 1 1, Jiangsu Provincial Planning Commission violated regulations, exceeded its authority or did not follow the procedures to approve Tieben Company's construction of10.5 million tons wide plate project and silicon steel system project, with a total investment of 5.8 billion yuan.
—— In August, 2003, Yangzhong Development Plan, Economic and Trade Bureau and Foreign Trade Bureau jointly approved Tieben Company and Lianying Company to jointly establish Zhenjiang Tieben Coking Co., Ltd. to build coking projects in Yangzhong. The dereliction of duty and violation of regulations by functional departments make it difficult to implement the farmland protection system.
Many cadres and masses feel incredible about the illegal land occupation of Tieben Project: Tieben Company started construction for 9 months, covering an area of 654 1 mu. According to regulations, the occupation of so much land, especially basic farmland, must be reported to the State Council for approval. Where are the local governments and land departments that should be responsible for defending their land?
According to the law, if the construction land needs to occupy cultivated land, it must first go through the examination and approval procedures for the conversion of agricultural land. With the approval of the land department at or above the provincial level, the land department can sign an agreement on land acquisition compensation and resettlement with village-level organizations on behalf of the government after the land supply for specific projects is implemented, and enterprises can enter the site for construction. Judging from the land occupation process of Tieben Project, the whole procedure is basically "upside down".
In May 2003, Xinbei Branch of Changzhou Municipal Bureau of Land and Resources issued a notice to make room for the demolition of Tieben Project, saying that "all the relocated houses will be delivered for demolition before June 30, 2003, and if they are not delivered within the time limit, they will be dealt with according to law".
In April of that year, the government of Weicun Town, Xinbei District issued relevant regulations on the demolition and resettlement of Tieben Project, and signed a land acquisition agreement with the villagers' group beyond its authority. Xilaiqiao Town, Yangzhong City also carried out land acquisition and demolition work in advance before the land acquisition was approved.
In August, 2003, Yangzhong City Land and Resources Bureau imposed a fine of 760,000 yuan on Xilaiqiao Town Government for occupying 230 mu of resettlement housing construction land for Tieben Project without authorization, but did not punish a large number of other illegal land occupied by Tieben Project.
More seriously, the relevant land management departments have also gone through the relevant procedures for illegal land occupation of Tieben Project. The reporter saw in the approval list of land application for Tieben Project of Changzhou Land and Resources Bureau that among the 5,988 mu of land involved in Tieben Project of Changzhou City, Xinbei District of Changzhou City applied to Changzhou Land and Resources Bureau for three batches of *** 14; Changzhou Municipal Bureau of Land and Resources subsequently reported it to Jiangsu Provincial Department of Land and Resources in three batches.
On June 20, 2003, the Provincial Department of Land and Resources illegally approved the 14 land project split by Tieben Company from a whole piece of land within one day, which legalized the illegal occupation of part of Tieben project.
Before going through the formalities of land declaration, Tieben Company entered the construction site on its own with the investment agreement signed with the town government, and illegally occupied the land, resulting in the destruction of a large number of cultivated land, which directly led to the forced demolition and displacement of more than 2,000 households and 6,000 farmers in Weicun Town and Xilaiqiao Town.
Experts from the State Council Development Research Center believe that getting on the bus first, buying tickets, starting first and then examining and approving are the grandiose reasons for developing local economy in some places. It is these illegal acts that make it impossible to implement the strictest farmland protection system in the country. Six financial institutions "collectively collapsed". Tieben Company defrauded bank credit and loans by providing false financial statements, and misappropriated more than 2 billion yuan of bank working capital loans for fixed assets investment, which caused great risks. People can't help asking: Why did the six major financial institutions "collectively collapse" and pay "blood" for the Tieben project?
Many cadres and masses in Changzhou said that they had never heard of Tieben Company and Dai Guofang before, and they didn't know about this enterprise until the State Council announced the investigation. However, many banks have a soft spot for it. According to the investigation of the State Council Inspection Team, by the end of February, 2004, the total credit balance of China Bank Changzhou Branch and other financial institutions to Tieben Company and its affiliated enterprises was equivalent to 4.339 billion yuan, of which 2.56 billion yuan of bank loans had been actually invested in the project.
Chen Zhongyun, director of Changzhou Banking Regulatory Bureau, said frankly: "There are more than 160 loans from six banks, among which China Bank Changzhou Branch has the most loans, with 50 or 60 loans. It is puzzling that Tieben Company is not large in scale, but the bank has given it huge credit. "
According to the analysis of people familiar with the matter, in order to compete, several branches of China Bank, China Construction Bank and China Agricultural Bank, which participated in the Tieben project, were all internally controlled and did not communicate with each other. Since May 2003, China Bank has made its first investment in Tieben.
Tieben Company 10 affiliated enterprises also guarantee each other in violation of regulations. However, the six banks that provided loans did not find it, which led to the bank granting credit to enterprises many times. The credit exposure of China Bank Changzhou Branch to Jiangsu Tieben alone reached 654.38+638 million yuan.
According to the analysis of Changzhou financial department, six banks were caught in a whirlpool at the same time. An important reason is that financial institutions do not attach importance to pre-lending review and post-lending monitoring, thinking that the projects supported by local governments are reliable and the lessons are profound. On the surface, Tieben Company has taken various measures to transfer bank loans. However, no matter how Tieben Company breaks up parts and provides false financial statements, banks cannot be unaware of the fact that they have lent hundreds of millions of yuan of working capital to Tieben's new projects. The investigation found that the Bank of China Changzhou Branch evaded the examination and approval regulations on fixed assets investment loans and took the form of lending working capital to allow Tieben Company to misappropriate it for investment.
According to relevant regulations, new projects must meet the requirements of national industrial policies, land use and environmental protection, and banks can only give credit support after obtaining legal procedures for project establishment and approval. The Tieben incident revealed that these banks were too weak in risk awareness, made serious mistakes in the credit rating of Tieben Company, and made major deviations in policy implementation. Before the Tieben project was approved by law, six financial institutions began to scramble for loans, among which the Agricultural Bank of China seriously violated the national cash management regulations, and the maximum daily cash payment reached10 million yuan. Collective absence of functional departments
The pollution problem is one of the focuses reflected by the masses when the Tieben project was launched. In particular, the news that Yangzhong will launch coking and highly polluting silicon steel projects immediately aroused strong opposition from many citizens. Yangzhong is the first batch of ecological demonstration cities in China and has the reputation of "water garden". It is conceivable that such a highly polluting project will bring hidden dangers to the local environment.
According to the relevant regulations, the State Environmental Protection Administration is responsible for examining and approving the environmental impact assessment documents of steel projects with a total investment of 200 million yuan or more. The coking project of Tieben Company has a total investment of US$ 29.8 million, with an annual output of 600,000 tons of coke, which exceeds the annual production capacity of Shanghai Baosteel Coking Plant and needs to be submitted to the State Environmental Protection Administration for approval.
In fact, the coking project was not approved, and Tieben Company started construction without authorization. Now the project site has been paved with lime several meters deep, and the pile foundation has been driven for one or twenty meters, resulting in all the cultivated land being destroyed and unable to be reclaimed.
According to the regulations, nothing can be moved until the environmental protection conclusion of the construction project comes out. According to the reporter's investigation, eight new projects submitted by Tieben Company for preliminary registration to the environmental protection department failed to pass the EIA approval of the environmental protection department, and six of them have started construction illegally.
The problem that local governments and relevant departments ignore the EIA law is also very prominent. Jiangsu Development Planning Commission, Changzhou High-tech Zone Economic Development Bureau, Yangzhong Development Planning and Economic and Trade Bureau and other departments approved the feasibility study report of Tieben Company's related projects without the approval of the environmental protection department, which violated the relevant provisions of the Environmental Impact Assessment Law of the People's Republic of China.
The environmental protection departments of Changzhou City and Yangzhong City reported that according to the scale of investment, they had no right to examine and approve, so they had to "pass the hand" and then send it to the environmental protection department at a higher level. According to the reporter's investigation, the local environmental protection department has participated in the environmental pre-examination of these projects and passed them. Shi Zhenhua, director of the Environmental Protection Department of Jiangsu Province, said that although the illegal start of Tieben Company mainly ignored the EIA law, the environmental protection department also had problems such as insufficient inspection, poor supervision and lax law enforcement. Even if it has no right to approve, it should stop the illegal start-up behavior of the enterprise in time and report to the superior.