Public must keep eye on use of taxpayers' money

A gavel in a court. [Photo/IC]

PENG YINGLONG, an official from Hengyang, Central China's Hunan province, was recently expelled from office for suspected corruption. He reportedly bought almost everything in daily life, from paper diapers of his granddaughter to the wood for his future coffin, using public money. Beijing Youth Daily commented on Tuesday:

Peng is not the only one of his kind. Shao Minghua, a corrupt official from East China's Jiangsu province, purchased all his clothes, shoes and cellphones at the public's expense; another official surnamed Jiang in neighboring Anhui province even asked for a certificate after enjoying illegal sex services in order to pay with public money. He had a dispute with the prostitute and lost his life for that.

These stories about corrupt officials are rather funny and eye-catching. But more importantly, we should learn a lesson from them: How could these officials pay for everything using taxpayers' money? Where is our financial regulation?

The key reason lies in lack of regulations to curb such misuses of power. Theoretically, every member of a bureau has to go through set procedures in order to pay with taxpayers' money, but in practice financial staff seldom dare reject the expenses claims of leading officials, who are after all their superiors. So the financial regulations are simply not executed.

The ongoing anti-graft campaign has shocked corrupt officials so that they dare not grab money like before. However, the regulations are still full of loopholes and a leading official can use them as long as he holds power in hand. The top-down power structure must be changed and the public's right to supervise officials and even remove them from office must be upheld, so that the regulations won't be treated as a scrap of paper anymore.