Shang Jun, 52, once tasked with rooting out corruption in Anhui province was sentenced for taking up to 900,000 yuan (116,000 dollars) in bribes as head of the party's disciplinary committee in Fuyang city, Xinhua news agency said.

Shang was also vice mayor of Fuyang from 1992 to 2005, the report said.

She was convicted of taking bribes for arranging jobs and construction contracts for others, it said.

Her conviction comes after Wang Zhaoyao, a former Fuyang official who rose to become the number two Communist Party leader in Anhui, was sentenced to death last month for corruption.

Wang was convicted of taking bribes amounting to seven million yuan (898,000 dollars) from 44 people between 1991 and 2005, previous reports said.

The former vice-governor of Anhui, Wang Huaizhong, was executed in February 2004 for having taken 5.17 million yuan (623,000 dollars) in bribes and for possessing 4.8 million yuan that he could not justify.

His case of massive fraud led to a clean-up of the provincial government, but it was not immediately clear if the cases of Shang and Wang Zhaoyao were directly linked to Wang Huaizhong.

For several months the Chinese government has been engaged in a crackdown on corruption, a scourge so widespread it is considered to be a threat to the ruling party's legitimacy.