City Party head fired over pension scandal  

CHEN Liangyu, secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, has been sacked for his involvement in the city's social security fund scandal, the Party's Central Committee said yesterday.

Chen was also suspended from his posts on the Central Committee and the committee's Political Bureau.

Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng was appointed acting Shanghai Party secretary.

The Political Bureau met in Beijing on Sunday to discuss a preliminary investigative report on Chen's activities that had been prepared by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Earlier media reports said more than 100 investigators from Beijing were dispatched to Shanghai to look into charges that money had been siphoned from Shanghai's social security system, which manages more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.25 billion) in assets.