A Chinese legislator fed up with lavish banquets and official wining and dining has proposed making the “squandering of public funds” a crime, state press said yesterday.
“Public spending on eating and drinking is a waste of social assets,” Zhao Linzhong (趙林中), a delegate to the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, told the Worker’s Daily.
“We need to criminalize this by law, so I proposed amending the criminal law and introducing the crime of ‘wantonly squandering public funds,’” he said.
Throwing lavish banquets has long been a Chinese tradition, both in government as well as business, a practice that besides wasting money has also proven to be unhealthy, the report said.
The official People’s Daily said China spends up to 200 billion yuan (US$29 billion) a year on public wining and dining, a sum larger than the cost of the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s biggest hydroelectric project.
“Although I myself am a victim of this tradition, at the same time I help advance this tradition by hosting meals and accepting invitations,” said Zhao, who also heads a leading Chinese textile company.
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