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Stop money splurges

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-13 07:46

The masses should have the right to know exactly how officials have spent government money and abusers should be held accountable, says an article on the website of China Youth Daily. Following is an except:

A netizen recently exposed online the lavish spending by officials on entertainment in a prefecture-level city of Hunan province. According to the exposed payment list, the head of the local television and radio administration, for example, spent almost 10,000 yuan alone on a working day in KTV, massage and dining.

It reminds us of another big splash of government money in Huainan, Anhui province, where officials purchased fitness center memberships with government funds. Shortly after the exposure by netizens, the memberships were canceled.

If not for the Internet, it would be almost impossible for the masses to know exactly how officials use government money.

It's already common to see officials abusing the public purse for personal purposes such as entertainment. It has left China with ever-expanding financial expenditures and an unusually high ratio of administrative expenditures

Under the current system, the lavish spending of government money on dining and entertainment is only a matter of indiscipline rather than corruption or crime. Officials in question mostly go unpunished.

As a result, others are not deterred from abusing the system.

(China Daily 03/13/2009 page9)