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Officials move lavish feasting to canteens
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REDWOOD furniture, KTV facilities, a cinema, lavish artworks, luxury food and wine — this is not a high-end private club, but an ordinary canteen.
A recent undercover report done by Xinhua news agency found that in some parts of the country, government canteens have become hotbeds of extravagance.
The report comes amid a long-running government campaign to promote frugality and stamp out profligate spending among officials.
Over recent years, the campaign has led to a drop-off in revenue among luxury brands and up-scale dining establishments, yet evidence suggests that some dissolute officials have simply taken their taste for the finer things underground.
One government canteen in western China featured a spacious private room with a huge dining table that can accommodate 20 to 30 people, a large redwood desk and an attached KTV room.
One source said proudly to reporters that the KTV room had the city’s best equipment and sound quality. “It’s very safe because it’s located in a canteen; nobody would notice it,” he added.
Earlier this month, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the government’s anti-corruption watchdog, published a separate article which included statistics indicating a rebound in public spending on dining.
In February, the amount shelled out by officials on meals increased by 29.89 percent from the previous month, suggesting that some cadres have turned a deaf ear to calls for more parsimonious consumption.
An discipline official in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region said that some leading cadres have taken little account of the “eight rules,” a series of stipulations issued by central authorities in 2012 to restrict rapacious behaviors among officials.
“When implementing the regulations, some institutes have made very abstract correction measures,” the official said, adding that “internal supervisions are weak and useless to stop the violations.”
But while regulations banning officials from using public funds at high-end hotels, restaurants and private clubs have proven relatively effective by most measures, some cadres are finding it hard to deny their appetite for excess. In fact, officials — and those who cater to their lavish tastes — have found new strategies to indulge away from prying eyes.
Many in search of secrecy have turned to private clubs. Such clubs are often located in obscure venues and only receive guests via reservation. In some cases, guests can spend thousands of yuan in a single visit.
In 2013, an Internet user exposed traffic administrative officials in Putian in south China’s Fujian Province, spending more than 7,000 yuan (US$1,128) on a meal at a private club in late 2012. This revelation quickly triggered a heated discussion online.
But once graft-busters started focusing on private clubs, many officials moved their feasting to “training centers” which are rarely visited by outsiders.
A representative from one such center in north China’s Liaoning Province told uncover reporters that some local officials often spend at least 1,000 yuan per table to dine there, and invoices can be easily and flexibly issued in the name of various training projects.
In July 2014, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection called for tighter inspection of training centers. Soon afterward, government canteens started taking shape as new bastions of extravagance.
A discipline official in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region revealed in an early interview that at the end of last year an investigation team found that canteens of some local government institutes were overly lavish with their decor.
For example, the canteen of the autonomous region’s National Land Bureau office was said to have featured rosewood screens and other luxury redwood furniture, while the canteen at an Intermediate People’s Court was reportedly equipped with a redwood sofa, a big-screen TV set and a karaoke facility. And the local Forestry Department’s canteen covered an area of more than 1,000 square meters, with five private rooms and over 40 staff, the investigation has found.
Since these canteens are usually inconspicuous to outside observers, they can play host to a more low-key form of government-funded extravagance, according to discipline authorities.
Some canteens even have secret locations. According to the Xinhua report, one such canteen in central China is hidden inside an ecological park. A manager said that all the canteen’s vegetables, meat and eggs are specially prepared for “internal use.”
Professor Zhou Weiqiang with the Liaoning Provincial Party School attributed the phenomenon to the absence of public supervision.
“Discipline inspection departments should give full play to the power of the public against corruption,” Zhou said. “They should make it more convenient for the public to report problems and violations so that those who commit corruption in disguise will have nowhere to hide.”
Chen Baolong, a member of the Bar Association of Liaoning Province, has participated in the drafting of relevant anti-graft regulations on several occasions. He suggested using a real-name system to keep track of official receptions and banquets.
He also called for regulations which will strictly define the scope, costs and objective of such events.
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