Complied by Caijing Staff

From Caijing Online

An American excursion taken by 23 officials from Wenzhou City conjured a storm over the last week after the itinerary, tickets, and other documents from the trip were published online by a blogger.

In a post that translates as “A Government Officials’ Overseas Expense Sheet that I Found by Accident,” the blogger outlines a three-week, 10-city sojourn, during which 650 thousand yuan were disbursed and only five days of business were done.

The blogger claims that he stumbled upon all the documents in a plastic shopping bag in Shanghai’s No. 2 subway line. He photographed these papers and posted the picture online, setting off an uproar that led to a government investigation.

Wenzhou’s disciplinary organ has now wrapped its probe into the officials’ U.S. journey, according to the notification published from the Wenzhou Municipal Party Committee.

Three investigative groups were arranged to verify the claims made online. They found two major problems with the Wenzhou officials’ trip: Actual business training time was much less than the amount scheduled, while the cities traveled to exceeded those listed in the original plan.

Wenzhou’s disciplinary commission cited Deputy Director Yu Xuemin, who is in charge of the education branch of the Wenzhou party committee, for failure to fulfill his responsibility.

The commission also rebuked several officials for their lack of oversight. That list included the deputy chairman of the Wenzhou Commission of Discipline and Inspection, Xu Youping; the mayor of Wencheng County, Xie Zuoxiong; the deputy director of the organizational department of the Wenzhou Commission of Discipline and Inspection, Zhou Jianqiang.

Three of these men received an official censure.