Vigilance needed to avoid decadence

Officials and cadres should remain vigilant about the implementation of the eight-point decision on improving Party and government conduct to prevent the return of illegal banquets, said experts.

The supervision systems should be updated to respond to emerging problems that involve four forms of decadence: pointless formalities, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance, they said while commenting on cases issued by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Commission of Supervision, China's top anti-graft bodies.

In the first half of this year, the CCDI and NCS released 204 cases that violated the spirit of the eight-point decision. Seventy-two of those cases involved officials illegally attending banquets and entertainment venues.

Currently, the soil for the growth of corruption and improper conduct remains, and the risk of a rebound still exists, the commissions said. Discipline inspection and supervision organs at all levels should persevere in the rectification of misconduct and further improve the working mechanism for investigating related problems.

Tackling the four forms of decadence and implementing the eight-point decision are long-term policies, and officials at all levels should strictly prevent the rebound of related issues. Illegally attending banquets and entertainment venues is an act of hedonism and extravagance, said Yang Weidong, a law professor at the China University of Political Science and Law.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the CPC central committee has required officials to strictly supervise their conduct, but some are increasingly finding ways to conceal their behavior, he said.

In Qinghai province in December, six department-level officials drank alcohol while attending training at the provincial Party school, resulting in the death of one official. The others were investigated and punished by the CCDI and NCS.

This kind of excessive eating and drinking is still relatively difficult to detect, and if not for the death in Qinghai, the problem might not have been exposed, he said.

"Some officials think that attending banquets and entertainment venues is not a big deal, as long as the act isn't related to corruption or causes any serious consequences. These so-called small matters could affect the whole Party's conduct from the root," he said.

Among the released cases, about 87 percent involve officials accepting banquet invitations from private business owners in the sectors they manage. In addition, multiple cases have occurred in hidden canteens, offices, private clubs, residential areas and other places.

Those who invite officials to attend banquets are usually looking to engage in trading money for power. Banquet attendance is the first step in many bribery cases, resulting in a power-money trade, said Ji Yaping, head of the School of Administrative Law at the Northwest University of Political Science and Law.

"No matter what kind of banquet or entertainment, it is essentially corruption and should be eliminated at the source," he said.

Officials should strengthen the construction of moral sentiments to actively refuse illegal banquets, and supervision systems should be tightened so that officials understand that attending illegal banquets will result in punishment, Ji said.

According to the unveiled cases, in response to stricter supervision, some officials and cadres even embezzled public funds through repeated reimbursement of catering bills, inflated items and quotations, and used them to cover the fees paid for illegal banquets.

Ji said that the finance departments of institutions do not reimburse banquet fees unless the function is a normal official reception, so some people find ways to work around it by, for example, falsely invoicing office supplies to offset the cost of meals.

In these cases, the officials are not just violating Party disciplines, but are also committing crimes. This is one significant reason to crack down on such problems, as they may trigger a series of illegal activities, Yang said.

In the face of the emerging problem of attending illegal banquets, discipline inspection and supervision departments should constantly update inspection methods and improve the existing supervision system, he said.