Corrupt officials hauled up for using daily commute to shirk duties
Over 6,000 party cadres – mostly low-ranking and from rural areas – called to task on graft allegations, with some having chalked up hefty sums in travel expenses
PUBLISHED : Monday, 13 October, 2014, 3:41pm
UPDATED : Monday, 13 October, 2014, 4:06pm
Alec Cheung [email protected]
Many city-dwelling government officials appointed in rural areas are allegedly using their daily commute as an excuse to escape work duties. Photo: Reuters
Thousands of government officials are being investigated for corruption and neglecting their duties, in some cases by using their daily commute as an excuse to shirk responsibilities at work.
Of the more than 6,000 officials hauled up, most were low-ranking city dwellers appointed to rural areas, Xinhua reported.
These “migrating officials” often used their commute to and from the office to ignore or escape their official duties. Some remained in their city homes instead of reporting for work at their rural offices. Some of these officials also faced corruption allegations, the report said.
A total of 6,484 officials across nine provinces are being investigated, including 2,350 in Heilongjiang, 513 in Henan and 60 in Hainan. It appears that most officials are from the rural areas, with no such cases of “migrating officials” reported from the big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.
An official told Xinhua that just the gas and maintenance fees for the cars of the tens of officials in his county amounted to about 200,000 yuan each year.
A prime example of one such corrupt “migrating official” was Cui Lianhai, former party secretary of Qin Jia Tun Village in Jilin province, Xinhua reported. He was jailed for 20 years on graft charges in June last year after racking up 72,690 yuan in travel expenses in 262 days. This worked out to an average daily travel spending of 278 yuan including weekends and public holidays.
Central Party School professor Xin Ming was quoted by Xinhua as saying that better infrastructure was needed to solve the “migrating official” problem.
But some provinces already have their own solutions. Hunan province’s Chenzhou city requires its officials to conduct a roll call via video chat while Hubei province’s Xiangyang city has a “surprise visit” system in place to keep its officials on their toes.
Xin noted that despite the problem with such “migrating officials”, the public should also bear in mind that officials have a right to spend time with their families. But these officials must strike a balance between their responsibilities at home and their duties at work, he said.
