Eat less, treat more

That’s why this extreme rare case touched people’s nerves: It constituted a sharp contrast to the huge waste on public-funded meals.

Just days ago, Song Lin, the sacked chairman of State-owned China Resources who is now under investigation, was exposed to have spent 1.2 million yuan on a single meal. Each of six bottles of red wine at the feast cost about 120,000 yuan. That means, the cost of that single, luxurious meal could have helped at least 17,000 farmers be protected from ailments under the NCMS in one year.

According to the Beijing News, Jiu San Society, a non-Communist Party in China, in 2012 proposed to end the trend of public-funded luxurious meals as the expenditure even stood at 300 billion yuan in 2012. In contrast, the healthcare expenditure in 2012 was about 900 billion yuan and just surpassed 1 trillion yuan in 2013.

It’s great to see public funds on the luxurious meals dive since the top leader Xi Jinping advocated for mass line in late 2012. He also reiterated the importance of austerity and not wasting public funds. He especially paid attention to the acute problems of public-funded meals.

The anti-waste moves even dealt a blow to high-end restaurants. However, the anti-waste battle is not easy. Lately secret clubs serving officials the luxurious meals mushroomed, making it even harder to track down the publicly funded luxurious feasts.

Supported by the people, the government needs to continue to fight against the waste of public money on luxurious meals. It needs to demand the government at all levels raise transparency of public expenditure, in order to help divert more public funds to the people in need.