It's high time we prevented government officials from using public funds to travel overseas for leisure in the garb of business trips, says an article in Yangtze Evening Post. Excerpt:

The Guangzhou marine affairs court recently rejected accusations that six of its officials went on a sightseeing tour overseas, wasting a lot of public money.

According to their statement, the six court officials paid a 12-day visit to three foreign countries for "exchanging ideas and inspection". They said the court approved the visit, and the expenditure "did not exceed the budget".

The public was caught by surprise as the court came out with the statement defending its integrity.

People thought the court might be afraid of touching upon the core facts of the visit, such as expenditures and legitimacy. But the court laid out "the facts" before the media, refuting all allegations. But, is the court really innocent?

First, the statement is based on the investigation of the discipline department of the court and, obviously a subordinate department doesn't have the real power to monitor its leaders. Hence its findings are not convincing at all.

Second, although the court said that the visit was approved and legitimate, it didn't explain why they spent more time at tourist sports than at meetings. For example, during the 12-day trip, the officials dropped by only three courts and met one association of lawyers, which took them just about two full days. How did they spend the remaining 10 days?

The court said that each of the officials spent 80,000 yuan during the trip, adding that the expenditure didn't exceed the budget. But as far as we know, the market price for the same tour is around 20,000 yuan per person. If four times of the market price still doesn't exceed the budget, the court is really rich.

If the Guangzhou marine affair court can get away with no punishment for this overseas visit, it would set a bad example for other government departments.

The superior government department should intervene to debunk the court's statement.

(China Daily June 15, 2009)