Officials' wasteful spending slammed
By Chen Xingjie |
July 17, 2010, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
GOVERNMENTS of a poor county and a city have been heavily criticized by the public after being accused of squandering money on projects that were described as luxury yet useless.
Ganzhou City of Jiangxi Province unveiled a 113-meter-high clock tower on Thursday. The tower, with a mechanic clock imported from Britain, claimed to beat Big Ben as the world's biggest clock with a diameter of 12.8 meters, People.com.cn reported yesterday.
The tower costs 290 million yuan (US$42.79 million) while the city took in 11.1 billion yuan in fiscal income last year.
The city, with a population of 9 million, has eight counties under its administration listed as state-level poor counties.
The government of Puxian County in Shanxi Province has spent 118 million yuan to build a cultural hall that looked like Beijing's National Stadium, or "Bird's Nest."
The cost amounted to a third of the county's total annual fiscal income, local residents complained.
They said the luxury structure, capable of accommodating 3,000 people or one 10th of the county's total population, is far too expensive for them especially when the county is listed as a state-level poor county.
People blamed local officials' political ambitions for the luxury projects.
Ganzhou City of Jiangxi Province unveiled a 113-meter-high clock tower on Thursday. The tower, with a mechanic clock imported from Britain, claimed to beat Big Ben as the world's biggest clock with a diameter of 12.8 meters, People.com.cn reported yesterday.
The tower costs 290 million yuan (US$42.79 million) while the city took in 11.1 billion yuan in fiscal income last year.
The city, with a population of 9 million, has eight counties under its administration listed as state-level poor counties.
The government of Puxian County in Shanxi Province has spent 118 million yuan to build a cultural hall that looked like Beijing's National Stadium, or "Bird's Nest."
The cost amounted to a third of the county's total annual fiscal income, local residents complained.
They said the luxury structure, capable of accommodating 3,000 people or one 10th of the county's total population, is far too expensive for them especially when the county is listed as a state-level poor county.
People blamed local officials' political ambitions for the luxury projects.
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