Huang Shuihua was given a warning, according to the notice from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection
KC.NG@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Thursday, 28 April, 2016, 7:42pm
China’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign is advocated by President Xi Jinping. Photo: AFP
A mainland official in charge of the internal control of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office was found to have breached discipline himself by treating friends to a meal at a hotel on business expenses.
The news, highlighted in a notice released on Thursday by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), came some three months after the internal control body assigned an official to the office to oversee its discipline inspection work.
The case saw Huang Shuihua, a deputy secretary of the office’s department party committee and secretary of the office’s bureau of discipline supervision and investigation, take his “friends” to a hotel for a meal in late 2013 and claim the cost on expenses.
Huang was given a warning, according to the CCDI notice. It did not mention who Huang’s “friends” were, or how much the meal was. Nor did it mention how much Huang had claimed.
A Hong Kong deputy to the National People’s Congress, Professor Priscilla Lau Pui-king, said: “The CCDI move shows the party and the central government are serious about strengthening discipline.
“[Mr Huang’s case] sounds not too serious, judging from the penalty of a party warning. But the message is that no offender can be spared from the crackdown.”
A spokesman for the office could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
Huang’s case was among the 16 cases of conduct breaches listed in the CCDI notice. Other cases were mainly about accepting sightseeing arrangements during business trips, claiming business or travel expenses for private dealings, and drinking wine while on duty.
Most cadres in question were given party warnings, with three sacked.
The trio included a project audit manager of State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence, who was found to have used funds reserved for a project to buy wine for a reception in 2013.
The head of the China Food and Drug Administration’s department of emergency management also got sacked for allegedly claiming the cost of a meal with friends in 2015 on the expenses of a training workshop.
And a senior official at the National Energy Conservation Centre, who allegedly accepted sightseeing tours and souvenirs during an overseas study trip in 2015, was also sacked.
In the notice, the CCDI told government agencies to stay alert for strengthening discipline work in the run-up to Labour Day next week and the Dragon Boat Festival in June.
“All departments should step up discipline work and strengthen education in order to prevent the ‘Four Winds’ from bouncing back,” said the CCDI in the notice.
“Four Winds” refer to “formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and waste”. The crackdown on “Four Winds” forms part of the anti-corruption campaign advocated by President Xi Jinping.
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1939579/man-meant-oversee-discipline-mainland-chinas-hong-kong-and-macau
