A citizen buys some New Year gifts in Qingdao, Shandong province. [Photo/IC]

As lunar new year approaches, leading local officials, as part of established practice, will visit poor residents in their communities and bring gifts for them. However, China Disciplinary Daily, the official newspaper of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the top anti-graft agency, found some of them pretended to make such visits by faking photos:

The practice of leading local officials visiting poor families during Lunar New Year festival used to be rather heartwarming, as the officials would not only bring gifts to the poor families, but also show them the State had not forgotten them. The practice gave people confidence in the country's social welfare.

However, increasingly more local officials have turned such visits into shows. Some of them sit less than two minutes with the poor families, just enough time to have a photo taken; some of them even did not know the names of families they visit.

In some extreme cases, lazy officials even falsify photos instead of visiting poor families.

This is shameful, as these officials do not have the interests of poor families in their hearts; for them, the annual visits are nothing but a photo opportunity to boost their public image and win praise from their superiors. That is actually a kind of disciplinary violation, too, and it is necessary for disciplinary supervisors to regulate them.

But an even more urgent task is to prevent the social gaps from further widening, so that those at the bottom of society no longer live in poverty. If that proves mission impossible within the short term, at least social welfare can be improved, so that poor families get help from normal channels, instead of becoming merely extras in officials' shows. Let the poor people get their help with dignity－that's a basic standard for a healthy society in the modern era.