Fresh questions were being raised yesterday about the much-maligned high-speed-rail network, following media reports of extravagant spending on the trains' internal fixtures.
For instance, each onboard toilet facility costs as much as 1.2 million yuan (HK$1.5 million), featuring 'attractive but impractical' imported automated sinks and facial tissue boxes costing 1,125 yuan each.
A probe by Century Weekly magazine published yesterday found that train makers had been paying up to 10 times market value for toilet fittings.
That is despite placing bulk orders that industry insiders said should have brought a 40 per cent discount on listed prices.
The report on the spending could trigger a new round of criticism of the rapid development of the high-speed-rail network, which had been hailed as a national success story before the Ministry of Railways became embroiled in a series of corruption and mismanagement scandals early last year.
The ministry's woes peaked in July with a crash involving two high-speed trains in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, that claimed at least 40 lives and injured more than 100 people.
According to purchase documents obtained by the magazine, public toilets fitted in CRH2-class high-speed carriages made by China South Railways (CSR) cost 300,000 yuan.