Eight officials were fired last week for their negligence and poor oversight during the milk contamination scandal that occurred last year. David Barboza of the New York Times reports:

The government said high-ranking regulators in the country’s major food supervisory agencies, including the ministries of health and agriculture and the top food safety watchdog, were stripped of their positions and their membership in the Communist Party.

One of the highest officials to lose his job was Wang Bubu, chief of the law enforcement division of the General Administration of Quality Supervision and Quarantine.

The dismissals were Beijing’s latest efforts to strengthen food safety practices and hold government officials accountable after the worst food safety crisis here in decades.