A gavel in a court. [Photo/IC]

FORMER LOCAL LEADERS in Banqiao village, Hainan province, are being investigated for the squandering and misappropriation of funds. People.cn commented on Monday:

In less than a year and a half, the people in charge of the village spent more than 1.4 million yuan ($215,000) on feasts and falsified spending. This shows the corruption of the local village leaders.

Worse than the amount of public money squandered on meals, was the misappropriation of funds by exaggerating the spending on such things as street lights, trash bins and other public facilities. For example, the former village leaders claimed to have built a 100-square-meter public toilet that was actually only 32 sq m and to have paid 580 yuan for a trash can that had only cost about 100 yuan.

These people were leading local residents "by the nose".

The power bestowed on these people in the villagers' committee by the local residents through ballots should be used to help the residents, and public money belongs to the public and should be used to improve people's livelihoods. It is not the private asset of these leaders.

A swarm of flies (lower ranking officials) is much worse than a tiger (a high-ranking official). Strict supervision and standardized management are needed to curb the corruption of village leaders and other grassroots people in power.