Friday, 5 December 2008

Officials Censured Over Spending Claims

Anti-graft authorities in Jiangxi and Zhejiang have censured their own officials for wasting public money on luxurious overseas tours after their travel spending claims were posted online, according to mainland media.

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Guanyu said...

Officials Censured Over Spending Claims

Minnie Chan
5 December 2008

Anti-graft authorities in Jiangxi and Zhejiang have censured their own officials for wasting public money on luxurious overseas tours after their travel spending claims were posted online, according to mainland media.

However, netizens and political commentators were disappointed that two people who had organised a three-week tour for officials that cost 650,000 yuan (HK$734,000), including a stop at a US$700-a-night hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, received only a warning.

The Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post said Wenzhou’s Communist Party Disciplinary Committee warned its deputy party secretary Xu Youping , who was the chief of the delegation. It said the municipal government had also warned the deputy chief of the delegation, but did not give his name and post.

The daily did not list the actions taken against the other officials but said they were made after the spending claims were posted online. A netizen claimed he found the lists in a Shanghai subway station.

Tao Shimei , head of the party’s disciplinary committee, denied that officials spent public funds in casinos and brothels.

“We didn’t find such problems because almost all the officials who took part in the trip were very careful, as it was their first time to go overseas,” Ms Tao was quoted as saying.

Her deputy, Mr. Xu, who was also warned, denied their stop at the luxurious casino hotel, saying lists of spending claims posted online “are not the real itineraries of their trip”.

In Xinyu - where 11 officials were found to have spent 350,000 yuan on a 13-day trip to the US and Canada - all the officials received administrative punishment, with two being sacked and another suspended, according to China News Service.

Beijing-based political commentator Hu Xingdou said different punishments in Xinyu and Wenzhou had reflected the rampant wasting of public funds on the mainland.