Official sacked after piggy back
Print Edition
A TOWNSHIP official in east China’s Zhejiang Province was sacked yesterday, after he was carried on the back of an elderly villager so that his shoes would not get wet.
A web user, known as hasangqi, posted on Weibo.com that a government official in Sanqishi Town, which is administered by Yuyao City, inspected typhoon-hit areas on Sunday.
To prevent his shoes being ruined in floodwater, a village Party chief surnamed Xu, who is in his 60s, carried the official on his back.
An accompanying photograph showed a man walking in ankle-deep water, carrying another man on his back.
But the township government said Wang was wearing a pair of fabric shoes rather than designer leather shoes as online post had claimed.
When Wang was inspecting the village, where 90 percent of houses were flooded, he decided to visit 81-year-old Wei Dunyao, the village’s former Party chief, who was bed-ridden, China News Service reported.
Water is about 20 to 30 centimeters deep on roads leading to Wei’s house and Xu voluntarily carried Wang.
Wang at first insisted on taking off his shoes and walking, but as Xu was persistent in his offer, he accepted to end discussion and save time, the government said. Xu said there were only about five or six meters from Wei’s house.
Wang was removed from his post as an office director of the township government.
The township government said Wang was a middle-level official in the town.
Fitow wreaked havoc in east China last week, with Yuyao among areas worst hit.
About 70 percent of the city was flooded, leaving residents trapped in their homes for days without power and water supplies. The rain stopped on Thursday but electricity was only restored on Sunday.
Yuyao government has been accused of reacting too slowly to the crisis, and the “shoe scandal” has added to its woes.
“I don’t believe that officials like this are unusual in local government,” posted a web user who appeared to have been caught up in the floods.
“There might have been a group of officials like this and that’s why we were left without food for so many days.”
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