China's graft-busters tighten regulations on cadres' banquets
Some regional authorities are developing strict rules for Communist Party cadres to follow when eating out
Three years into Beijing’s relentless anti-corruption campaign and ever-more complex regulations are being dreamt up by various levels of government.
Some feel that the ban on luxury banquets, a favourite target for Communist Party graft-busters due to their long association with China’s social scene, is not effective – nor specific – enough.
Luxury banquets are one of the behaviours banned by the “eight rules”, but recently, graft-busters from Henan, Hangzhou, Jilin and Kunming went a step further and released restrictions detailing even where and how cadres could eat.
On Monday, the top graft-busting agency the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, released the April statistics for violations of the “eight rules”.
Spending public money on banquets and organising lavish weddings and showy funerals remained the two biggest problems, alongside the misuse of public cars.
In April alone, 2,508 cases featuring banquets were investigated – bringing the total for 2015 to 7,595 cases.