Anti-graft move takes moon cake

Crackdown on the use of public money on gifts to seek favors from officials will strengthen Party and government image

As Mid-Autumn Festival nears, the top discipline body of the Communist Party of China has intensified its crackdown on malpractices such as the use of public money to buy moon cakes and gift cards as part of its ongoing campaign against extravagance and corruption.

The CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection opened a "special tip-off window"on its website on Sunday inviting people to report lavish spending by officials and using public money to buy gifts during Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on Sept 8 this year. Officials violating the strict code will be named and shamed in a weekly report on the website.

The move is aimed at better implementing the eight-point rules, introduced by China's new leadership at the end of 2012 to end the lavish lifestyle and excessive formalities indulged in by Party members, and preventing officials from reverting to their dishonest workstyle, the website says. On the very day that the "special tip-off window" opened, the CCDI said that in the previous week 154 violations of the eight-point rules by officials had been reported. By the end of June, 61,703 officials had been punished for breaching the rules.

People have applauded the intensified crackdown on extravagance, and see the move as the right step toward building an austere Party and government.

What the top authorities are opposed to is not normal public consumption of moon cakes, a kind of round pastry with sweet or other fillings savored by people during Mid-Autumn Festival, but the squandering of taxpayers' money by civil servants.