County planned to spend 100m yuan on govt building

A county government in East China's Anhui province was planning to spend more than 100 million yuan ($16 million) on a government building, more than double of the approved cost, China News Service reported on Friday.

Qimen county of Huangshan city was originally allowed by the provincial economic planner to build an 18,000-square-meter administrative building at a cost of 45 million yuan.

But according to a statement on its website on Jan 30, which talked about the groundbreaking ceremony, the building turned out to have a floor area of 33,000 sq m and was slated to cost 106 million yuan.

The statement was later deleted after it aroused criticism from the public.

Chen Liujie, a senior official from the county government, was quoted as saying that the added construction floor area and cost did not need approval from a higher authority.