Chapter 12 Chapter 10: The gray screen of officials "going abroad for investigation"

It is a common phenomenon for officials to go abroad for inspection at public expense, but it has become a kind of welfare or treatment for officials at present. In the future, the central government will strictly control the scale of the budget for going abroad (border) on business, implement zero growth in the budget for going abroad (border) on business for officials of party and government agencies at all levels, and implement dual control over the budget for going abroad (border) on business and the amount of foreign exchange used . This is in the "Interim Measures for Strengthening the Management of Funds for Party and Government Officials Going Abroad (Territory) on Business" (hereinafter referred to as the Measures) jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Supervision, the Audit Office, and the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention on October 16, 2008. Expressly stipulated.

"The method specifically mentions going abroad for inspections, which shows that the problems of officials going abroad for inspections at public expense have attracted the attention of the central government. This will play a restraining role on party and government officials at all levels, and will also further improve the anti-corruption system." Professor Gong Weibin of the National School of Administration In an interview with a reporter, he said, "The central government has issued repeated orders before, but the phenomenon of officials violating regulations to go abroad for investigation is still repeatedly prohibited, and the governance effect is not good."

It is understood that Chinese officials go abroad for investigation at public expense, the original intention is to let officials broaden their horizons, change their thinking, and learn advanced experience.However, the reporter's investigation found that at present, some officials' public-funded overseas inspections have mutated into public-funded tourism, shopping, arranging their children to study abroad, and even some corrupt officials' ways to amass money or flee abroad. Experts interviewed believe that the phenomenon of corruption that exists when officials go abroad for investigation at public expense will have a very bad impact on society and seriously damage the image and credibility of our country's cadres and government.To solve the chaos of going abroad at public expense, the most important thing is to reform the existing study abroad system at public expense.

In 2008, just after the National Day Holiday, when people were still immersed in the excitement of the long holiday, a local government official failed to return from a "study abroad" event, which put Wenzhou political circles at the forefront of public opinion— Yang Xianghong, member of the Standing Committee of the Wenzhou Municipal Party Committee and Secretary of the Lucheng District Party Committee in Zhejiang Province, did not come to work on time after the long vacation: When he took a delegation to Paris, France in early October, he left the team on the grounds of visiting his daughter in France.When the delegation was about to return to China, he refused to return on the grounds that the old problem of lumbar disc herniation had recurred and he could not take a long-distance flight.

A dignified district party secretary led a delegation to go abroad for investigation, but left the team alone to stay in another country due to illness. It was not until November 12, 2008 that it was reported that Yang Xianghong was expelled from the party and administratively expelled.However, there is still no "official explanation" as to whether the public's suspicion is another flight of corrupt officials taking advantage of the opportunity to go abroad for investigation. This incident made the public naturally think of the Yang Xiuzhu case that had long since faded from view.Yang Xiuzhu, who was the deputy mayor of Wenzhou City, was suspected of embezzling more than 200 million yuan when she was the deputy director of the Construction Department of Zhejiang Province. On April 20, 2003, Yang Xiuzhu fled to the United States under the pretext of going abroad for investigation, and has not been brought to justice so far.

"Whether Yang Xianghong is a corrupt official requires serious investigation and evidence collection. However, many facts show that some Chinese officials' overseas inspections are related to corruption. It is not surprising that the public has various speculations." The taste of going abroad has changed, and the relevant departments should make a deep reflection on the system design.” "Currently officials go abroad for inspection at public expense, and many connotations have changed significantly, and it has become a way of traveling and shopping at public expense." A friend who studied in France once told a reporter, "Our country's officials go abroad for inspection at public expense. , have no scruples, and the international image is very bad. Just like this, many countries regard the government-funded travel of Chinese officials as a very important source of tourism revenue, and provide convenience for Chinese officials who go through entry procedures."

"Many officials going abroad for inspections have become a kind of hidden corruption that takes advantage of the gaps in the system." A civil servant from an agency in Beijing revealed to reporters, "Most of the officials who go abroad in the name of inspections mainly focus on tourism and shopping. , a small number of people took the opportunity to use public funds to do private work-or transfer stolen money, or buy a house, or arrange for their children to study abroad and their wives to settle down, some even spend a lot of time looking for girls, etc. " In fact, in recent years, arranging official visits abroad at public expense has become the key business of many travel agencies. “We very much welcome official tours abroad at public expense. The cost of most officials’ overseas inspections is obviously higher than that of individuals traveling abroad.” The head of a travel agency in Beijing told reporters, “Because the profits are relatively high, the competition for this business is fierce. Many travel agencies even use bribes to get business."

According to industry insiders, some travel agencies also do everything possible to "reduce the burden" on officials and implement "one-stop" services - arranging itineraries, handling invitation letters, writing applications for going abroad, and even writing inspection reports for them after returning from abroad. In recent years, overseas inspections have also become a way for a small number of officials to amass money or for some corrupt officials to flee abroad. In 2003, Wang Bo, the former secretary of the county party committee of Hengxian County, Guangxi Province, who was prosecuted in 2003, accepted bribes of 13,000 yuan and 6,000 U.S. dollars under the pretext of going abroad for inspection; Chang Laibei took advantage of his position to falsely list expenditures in the process of paying the expenses of the study tour abroad, thereby embezzling more than 550,000 yuan of public funds of the unit, and so on.

Corrupt officials who have fled abroad for inspections include the famous Yang Xiuzhu, Lu Wanli, the former director of the Guizhou Provincial Department of Communications, Jiang Jifang, the former director of the Henan Provincial Tobacco Monopoly Bureau and manager of the tobacco company, Cheng Sanchang, the former secretary of the Luohe City Party Committee in Henan Province, and Corrupt officials such as Hu Xing, the former deputy director of the Transportation Department, and Gao Shan, the former head of the Harbin Hesongjie Sub-branch of the Bank of China Heilongjiang Branch, all successfully fled in the name of going abroad for investigation.

"It's time to pay attention to the corruption of officials' overseas inspections." Professor Li Chengyan, a doctoral supervisor at Peking University's School of Government Administration, said in an interview with reporters, "Many of the expensive overseas inspections of Chinese officials have ruined taxpayers' money. It has caused a huge waste of money, and it has become a way for some officials to corrupt, which has seriously shaken the foundation of our country's anti-corruption." The reporter's investigation found that it has become a common phenomenon for officials at all levels of party and government organs and public institutions to go abroad for inspection at public expense.

According to the available information from the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: In 2003, a total of 210,000 cadres' business exit passes and passports were approved and issued, and more than 4,373,600 people left the country, including 3,168,400 person-times to Hong Kong and Macao SARs, and 1,105,200 person-times to foreign countries. The system of Chinese officials going abroad at public expense was started in the mid-1980s. Its purpose is to let officials go out to broaden their horizons and learn the "advanced experience" of some developed countries.But I don’t know when, it seems that some officials’ “inertial thinking” to go abroad for inspection. Whenever there are any new projects or new measures, they always have to go abroad for inspection. "It stands to reason that it is necessary for some officials to go abroad for investigation." Professor Zhang Ming of the Department of Political Science at Renmin University of China pointed out in an interview with reporters, "But unfortunately, at present, officials who go abroad for inspection in many places and departments have become a kind of official. Welfare or treatment, eventually become an inducement for officials to go astray.” It is understood that some localities and departments even use the form of documents to "cancel the inspection abroad" as a means of punishment for officials.For example, on November 16, 2005, the Hebei Provincial Government stipulated that the leaders of the units that failed to complete the task of clearing the arrears were not allowed to go abroad for inspections during the process of clearing the arrears of government-invested projects.Judging from the prohibition of going abroad for inspection as a condition for punishment, in the eyes of some people, the connotation of going abroad for inspection is quite intriguing. "In some places or units, it is a customary rank treatment for officials to go abroad for inspection at public expense, and the connotation carries a lot of work performance rewards, vacations and other properties." A young civil servant surnamed Wang from an agency directly under Beijing thinks, "These officials go abroad for inspections. Starting from the needs of work, but arranged according to the level, so that there are some high-ranking leaders who have no obvious work needs and go abroad several times a year. Some officials who have work needs want to go out because they are not in the rank or have no internal appointment by the leader. There is no chance to go out." "This practice of turning overseas inspections into tourism is a concrete manifestation of the abuse of public power." Zeng Guangyu, deputy secretary-general of the 10th Beijing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and vice chairman of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the China Democratic National Construction Association, told reporters. In fact, most local governments in my country have relevant regulations on officials going abroad for inspections, the most obvious being index management.For example, "officials at the provincial and ministerial level can go abroad twice a year, and officials at the bureau level can go abroad once a year"; "officials at the provincial level can go abroad once a year, and they can visit two countries for no more than 12 days", and so on. The original intention of this regulation is to control government officials to go abroad for inspection, but in reality it often evolves into the welfare or treatment of officials.Some officials have the mentality of "use the right to use it, and lose it after the expiration date". In order to go abroad, they even resort to fraud, turning "investigation" into "international scandals" from time to time. According to reports, on November 20, 2006, a 10-member official investigation team headed by Deputy Prosecutor General Xu Wenai from the People's Procuratorate of Anhui Province was found to have a forged invitation from the Finnish Ministry of Justice when going through entry procedures at Helsinki Airport in Finland. Letters, and there are violations of regulations and disciplines such as changing the itinerary of the visit without authorization and adding destination countries. In April 2007, Xu Wenai was dismissed for investigation. Our country has strict regulations on officials going abroad for inspections at public expense, but the reporter's investigation found that in the face of these regulations, some officials took advantage of policy loopholes, played "edge balls", and traveled abroad in disguise in the name of inspections, basically out of control. As early as October 2, 1993, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Notice on Strictly Using Public Expenses to Go Abroad (Boundary) in Disguise". In the spring of 2004, the Central Office and the State Office issued a notice on "Strictly Controlling the Expenses of Cadres Going Abroad and Activities Abroad". On August 7, 2007, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection issued a circular on the Xu Wenai incident, emphasizing that all regions and departments must take effective measures to resolutely stop the unhealthy trend of traveling abroad (border) with public funds in the name of official activities, etc. "The central government and some local governments have issued many regulations regulating officials' overseas inspections in recent years, but these regulations have not curbed the upsurge of officials' overseas inspections." Professor Qi Shanhong, a doctoral supervisor at Nankai University, said in an interview with reporters, "Officials are keen to go abroad for inspections. , mainly spent on public funds. In addition, we implement index-based management, and the number of inspection trips abroad is determined by the size of the official position. Even if a high-ranking person has no official business needs, he can justifiably "go abroad for inspection". Officials go abroad for inspection and approval at public expense The procedures are too simple, the restrictions are too loose, and there is no blocking at the source, and the next step is to agree with the organization department, report to the discipline inspection department, and be approved by the foreign affairs department, which is basically a formality.” "Officials who go abroad for inspections lack operational and specific provisions for investigation and punishment." Li Chengyan pointed out, "In reality, it is rare for relevant officials to be punished for violating regulations and going abroad for inspections at public expense. Violations that do not have to pay a price, in the face of more bans, It will also be unimpeded. In today’s information age, studying abroad is no longer the only way to study. It is necessary to use various modern communication technologies to open up other channels for learning experience from other places, so as to block the various excuses of some officials to study abroad. Even for those Necessary overseas inspections should also be strictly managed. If all local officials go abroad at public expense, they must go through strict approval procedures, and the reimbursement of their funds must be reviewed by the superior supervisory agency, and officials will inevitably weigh the pros and cons of overseas inspections at public expense.” Many experts interviewed believe that going abroad for inspection is a channel to be in line with international standards. Through observation, learning and reference, one can often increase knowledge and broaden horizons.But what is the current definition of going abroad for inspection and traveling abroad?Who will judge, who will supervise, and who will investigate and deal with what has been learned?Plugging these loopholes in the system is the current top priority for regulating officials' overseas inspections. "Lack of supervision and restraint throughout the whole process, and low transparency have led some officials to take public funds to travel abroad frequently without any scruples." A civil servant from an agency in Beijing told reporters, "There are too many secret operations in the entire process of going abroad. Including the selection criteria for overseas inspection personnel, inspection purpose, time, route, and results, not to mention the outside world, even the department, except for a few leaders, the general staff do not know the details. In many cases, the masses only know when officials return from overseas inspections. information asymmetry." Every year at the National Two Sessions, representatives and committee members criticize the phenomenon of officials going abroad for inspections in violation of regulations. "There is nothing wrong with going abroad at public expense, but there is a problem in the implementation." In March 2007, a representative of the Central Committee of the Chinese Revolutionary Revolutionary Committee Mai Kangsen said during the National Two Sessions, "At least a quarter of the public-funded trips abroad are worthy of the name. Not an inspection." In recent years, Chinese officials have spent money abroad at public expense, which has put enormous pressure on finances.According to the "2004 Final Accounts of Administrative and Institutional Units", in 2004 the national administrative institutions spent about 2.9 billion yuan on going abroad (including 1.9 billion yuan in foreign exchange), of which the central government was 1.1 billion yuan and the local government was 1.8 billion yuan.One fact is that after 2004, the phenomenon of Chinese officials going abroad for investigation at public expense showed a sharp upward trend. "The cost of officials going abroad is too high, resulting in huge waste, which is a serious problem." Professor Mao Shoulong from the Department of Administration and Management of Renmin University of China believes that "my country's public finance system lacks internal hard constraints. At present, it is still a soft constraint that enables leading cadres There have been a lot of ad hoc fiscal adjustments that have pushed some spending far beyond what was needed, at the expense of other sectors." "Officials are decision-makers and vested interests. They hold huge financial power. If they lack the necessary supervision and restrictions, they will repeatedly prohibit them from arranging welfare benefits such as going abroad for inspection." Zeng Guangyu told reporters, "Some government officials In order to go abroad, they even did not hesitate to embezzle other funds, including misappropriating tax revenue, land development revenue, using RMB to buy foreign exchange as funds, embezzling administrative and other public project funds, etc. "In order to solve the funds for overseas inspections, some officials have really tried their best, and some even apportioned and passed on the expenses to agencies at the same level, lower-level agencies, and subordinate units." Bringing some entrepreneurs along is to accompany them on inspections, rather than to pay for some unjustified consumption of officials. And some companies are willing to use this to win over officials, making overseas inspections a covert way of bribery. " Many interviewed experts believe that regulating officials' overseas inspections at public expense is another important entry point for the government's own management reform.If the government cannot find out the root cause of the problems existing in government-funded overseas inspections, and implement the strictest restrictions and management, it will be difficult to reverse the excessive situation of officials going abroad for inspections. "In order to control officials' public expenses to go abroad for investigation, all official expenditures must be included in the financial budget. This is the solution." Gong Weibin believes that "our country's budgetary expenditure items are mainly classified according to the nature of funds, and various expenditures are divided into business. Fees, administrative fees, etc., the cost of going abroad for inspections is easy to be mixed in. The central government must strictly budget, strictly supervise and review the preparation and implementation of the budget, and strictly control the expenses of officials going abroad for inspections. The relevant regulations in this method, The purpose is to solve the problem at its root." "It is necessary to strengthen the supervision of officials' overseas inspections at public expense, so as to establish an effective connection between the overseas inspections and their own work." Zou Jin, a lawyer from Beijing Hechuan Law Firm, suggested, "First of all, the inspection unit is based on the purpose of the overseas inspection, the inspection The necessity, source of expenses, inspection route and inspectors, formulate an overseas inspection plan, declare it to the relevant regulatory agency, and at the same time, publicize it; secondly, under the organization of the regulatory agency, hold a hearing on the overseas inspection plan to determine the feasibility of the inspection plan. The feasibility and necessity will be demonstrated to determine whether the investigation is necessary, whether the inspectors are appropriate, whether the route is reasonable, etc., whether the cost is appropriate, etc. to make a decision on the issue of overseas inspection, and hand it over to the inspection unit to organize the implementation; thirdly, after the inspection work is completed, the inspectors Write an inspection report, report to the regulatory agency and even disclose the inspection report to the public, and accept the supervision of the regulatory agency and the public; finally, establish a set of inspection and assessment mechanism for going abroad. Those who fail to complete the investigation task will be given certain administrative penalties or economic penalties, so that they will bear the inspection expenses themselves.” "Document regulations involving officials' overseas inspections must be carefully worded, strictly required, and severely punished. Permission is permission, prohibition is prohibition, and flexibility such as 'in principle', 'general', and 'special' cannot be used. regulations." Qi Shanhong believes that "even if there are individual 'exceptions', they should be listed one by one for easy comparison. Only by coming up with 'hard levers' and 'dead regulations' can the rigidity of policies be further increased and the authority of the government established, so that Completely plug the loopholes in the system, cut off some people's unreasonable ideas, and ensure that the policies are fully implemented. In the current period, cadres going abroad belong to the bottom line management category, and must be uncompromising in terms of policies. Otherwise, Management is tantamount to hypocrisy." "Only by making the system stricter can we give people a warning and cut off some people's idea of ​​using public funds to travel abroad." Li Chengyan suggested, "First, standardize the inspection site. All government officials and public finance expenditures for overseas inspection personnel , before going abroad, the list of people going abroad, the reason for the inspection, the program arrangement, and the time and place must be published on the government website. Second, the inspectors should be standardized. Appropriate inspectors should be determined according to the specific content of the inspection, especially for some professional and technical inspections , as many relevant professional and technical personnel as well as experts and scholars should be invited to participate. Only when experts are allowed to inspect, can they know what to see, what to learn, and what to do after the inspection. Third, implement a supervision system. Supervision and inspection of cadres' study and inspection, and serious punishment for those who do not obey orders or prohibit them." "In addition to increasing the punishment of officials who violate discipline, the following two aspects should also be improved." Zhang Ming suggested, "On the one hand, strengthen the management of funds for going abroad. For the management of funds for going abroad, it is not enough to only control the funds in the budget. As long as the extra-budgetary funds and "small treasury" of each unit exist, officials can use the financial power in their hands to solve the problem of expenses at any time, so the "three tracks" must be combined to formulate a rigid management mechanism for going abroad. On the other hand, the supervision mechanism should be improved. Fully activate the supervisory role of the National People's Congress, the media, and the masses, put an end to the black box operation or discretion of those officials who go abroad, and let officials go abroad to return to transparency and fairness."