Inspections discover smog fraud

A local government and a business have been caught passing off smog emergency plans copied from elsewhere as their own, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) announced Saturday.

Names of other counties were found in the air pollution emergency plan of one department of Lutai economic development zone in Hebei Province, and there was no detailed action plan, according an MEP inspection.

A paint factory in north China's Taiyuan City was found using an emergency plan they had obtained online, exposed, again, by failure to change some locations in the plan.

Beijing and cities in Hebei, Shandong and Henan provinces are failing to meet air pollution control requirements, such as not regulating diesel vehicles, closing coal-fired heating plants, or pressing enterprises to suspend production when heavy air pollution hits, according to the inspection.

The inspection of 18 cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and environs lasts until to March 15.

China is fighting pollution and environmental degradation after decades of neglect left the country saddled with problems such as smog and contaminated soil.

A total of 720 people were detained and 6,454 held accountable for environment-related wrongdoing in 2016.