Chinese people support outlawing officials' extravagance

BEIJING -- A recent survey revealed that more than 90 percent of Chinese people say they support a bill outlawing waste of government funds on extravagance by officials.

The survey, published in Tuesday's China Youth Daily, was conducted by the newspaper on the mobile portal website 3g.qq.com.

Among the 90,170 people polled, 93.7 percent said they strongly support a recent regulation issued by China's central authorities to strengthen management of government spending and curb waste among officials.

About 91 percent of respondents said the regulation also prompted a reflection of their own prodigal behaviors.

More than 97 percent of the respondents said they would support a law to criminalize the waste of public funds by officials.

Among the terms of the regulation, people cited the measures to tighten the use of official cars, information openness on official consumption, and an accountability mechanism as the most impressive points.

However, most of those surveyed said they feel extravagant behavior by officials still has not been controlled effectively, and compared with ordinary people's lifestyles, official splurges of public funds are a more obvious source of waste.

The newspaper also quoted an unnamed official with a central government department as saying that after the new regulation, many officials may continue their extravagance, but in a more secretive manner.

Another company employee in Guangzhou told the newspaper that much work could be done to put the budgeting process under supervision to reduce unnecessary spending included in budgets.

According to the survey, people believe supervision by the public is the most effective way to oversee official extravagance, followed by media exposure, while supervision by the authorities' disciplinary and supervisory watchdog came in third.