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A smile and luxury watches topple official
By Li Qian |
September 22, 2012, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A government official in northwest China with a penchant for luxurious accessories who was seen smiling broadly at the scene of a fatal bus crash has been stripped of his post due for seriously violating Party discipline.
A photograph of Yang Dacai, Shaanxi Province's work safety chief, smiling by the burnt-out double-decker sleeper bus on August 26 caused public indignation. The bus crashed into a methanol tanker on a highway and 36 people died in the inferno.
Angered by his smile, Internet users began to investigate and uncovered photographs showing him wearing at least 11 different luxury watches, including a Rolex and an Omega, and several different pairs of designer glasses.
Among the 11 watches is a Vacheron Constantin worth about 400,000 yuan (US$63,400). He was also spotted wearing a pair of German-made Lotos glasses, a top eyewear brand whose frames alone sell for at least 138,000 yuan.
In an early response to the criticism, Yang said that he had been "unprepared" at the time the photo was taken and he was smiling as he tried to calm down his subordinates.
He also insisted he only owned five expensive watches but used his "legal income" to buy them over a 10-year period. "The most expensive one cost me 35,000 yuan and the rest cost me 10,000 to 20,000 respectively," he said.
But his words failed to dismiss the doubts as critics argued that a public servant could not possibly afford the watches when Yang had claimed that his family's annual income was 170,000 to 180,000 yuan a year.
On September 1, Liu Yanfeng, a Hubei Province college student, filed an application to the Shaanxi financial department, demanding that Yang's salary from last year be made public. "Yang should publish his income to prove he can afford all those expensive watches," said Liu, a student at the China Three Gorges University.
His request was rejected.
The public pays for government officials and thus their income should be made public, Liu said.
In sharp contrast to the Internet campaign to shine a spotlight on Yang's taste for luxury, the authorities largely stayed silent, Xinhua news agency reported.
But such was the online anger that the province's discipline authorities launched a corruption investigation.
Yang has been dismissed from his position as member of the provincial Party discipline agency, as well as head and Party chief of the provincial work safety administration. A further investigation of Yang is under way, Xinhua news agency said.
The Internet is playing an increasingly important role in bringing hidden conflicts to the surface, said Professor Yu Guoming, director of the Institute of Public Opinion of Beijing-based Renmin University of China.
"Yang's case is not just the problem of an individual official," Yu told Xinhua.
"It should be taken as a warning to all government employees."
A photograph of Yang Dacai, Shaanxi Province's work safety chief, smiling by the burnt-out double-decker sleeper bus on August 26 caused public indignation. The bus crashed into a methanol tanker on a highway and 36 people died in the inferno.
Angered by his smile, Internet users began to investigate and uncovered photographs showing him wearing at least 11 different luxury watches, including a Rolex and an Omega, and several different pairs of designer glasses.
Among the 11 watches is a Vacheron Constantin worth about 400,000 yuan (US$63,400). He was also spotted wearing a pair of German-made Lotos glasses, a top eyewear brand whose frames alone sell for at least 138,000 yuan.
In an early response to the criticism, Yang said that he had been "unprepared" at the time the photo was taken and he was smiling as he tried to calm down his subordinates.
He also insisted he only owned five expensive watches but used his "legal income" to buy them over a 10-year period. "The most expensive one cost me 35,000 yuan and the rest cost me 10,000 to 20,000 respectively," he said.
But his words failed to dismiss the doubts as critics argued that a public servant could not possibly afford the watches when Yang had claimed that his family's annual income was 170,000 to 180,000 yuan a year.
On September 1, Liu Yanfeng, a Hubei Province college student, filed an application to the Shaanxi financial department, demanding that Yang's salary from last year be made public. "Yang should publish his income to prove he can afford all those expensive watches," said Liu, a student at the China Three Gorges University.
His request was rejected.
The public pays for government officials and thus their income should be made public, Liu said.
In sharp contrast to the Internet campaign to shine a spotlight on Yang's taste for luxury, the authorities largely stayed silent, Xinhua news agency reported.
But such was the online anger that the province's discipline authorities launched a corruption investigation.
Yang has been dismissed from his position as member of the provincial Party discipline agency, as well as head and Party chief of the provincial work safety administration. A further investigation of Yang is under way, Xinhua news agency said.
The Internet is playing an increasingly important role in bringing hidden conflicts to the surface, said Professor Yu Guoming, director of the Institute of Public Opinion of Beijing-based Renmin University of China.
"Yang's case is not just the problem of an individual official," Yu told Xinhua.
"It should be taken as a warning to all government employees."
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