Officials caught napping get sack

By Wang Zhenghua (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-27 08:50

SHANGHAI: Six local government officials from Hengyang, Hunan province, have been sacked after they photographed sleeping at a recent meeting in pictures widely circulated online.

The six, including some company managers and officials of various government agencies, were caught napping at a meeting to mark the 30th anniversary of reform and opening on Dec 18.

The pictures were widely circulated on a number of portal websites, and the six were removed from all of their Party and government posts on Thursday.

"They (the sackings) are intended to strictly enforce discipline and clear up the bad impact the incident has on society," Xinhua News Agency said on Friday, citing the decision made by the city government.

"The incident as well as the punishment decisions will be circulated across the city."

Without disclosing who took the pictures and posted them on the Internet, the report generated heated discussion online, with many saying the dismissals were unfair as it was not necessarily the officials' fault because meetings are often long and tedious.

"There are too many boring meetings, their organizers and the speakers should be blamed first," one person posted on sohu.com.

"The six should be forgiven if the meeting was boring," said another on the same website.

The incident also highlights the power of public complaints on the Internet when government officials' alleged improper behavior is exposed online.

A real estate management official in Nanjing spotted in an Internet-circulated photograph wearing a high-end luxurious wristwatch and smoking expensive cigarettes was placed under investigation earlier this week.

Two groups of government officials from Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces that went to the United States and Canada on "business" trips but actually spent most of their time visiting tourist sites such as Niagara Falls, Hawaii and Las Vegas were punished.

An Internet blogger found a bag on a Shanghai subway train containing the names of the government travelers, itineraries, invitation letters and invoices addressed to the local government. The documents were later exposed online.