Thousands of government officials in China prevented from taking expensive MBA courses
Move part of government efforts to curb extravagant spending and corruption
PUBLISHED : Friday, 19 December, 2014, 11:34am
UPDATED : Friday, 19 December, 2014, 5:55pm
Mandy Zuo
[email protected]
President Xi Jinping has made curbing rampant graft and wasteful spending one of the government's priorities. Photo: Reuters
More than 3,000 officials in China have been told to stop studying for MBAs and other expensive courses as part of the authorities’ crackdown on corruption and wasteful and extravagant government spending.
Officials have been barred from studying several expensive courses, including executive MBAs, state media reported.
Curbs on the “skyrocketing” cost of courses were listed among the major achievements this year by the Communist Party’s organisation departments, responsible for personnel management, Xinhua said.
Executive MBAs and similar courses, popular among officials, can cost about 600,000 yuan (HK$758,000) a year, more than 10 times the annual salary of some officials, mainland media previously reported.
Studying for the courses is deemed by the authorities to lead to corruption as officials sometimes rely on outside business contacts or public funds to pay for them.
Many officials attend the courses simply to gain business contacts or to improve their résumé, according to a previous report by The Beijing News.
A government document issued in July said all executive MBA programmes would be classified as “expensive” and cadres prohibited from studying for them.
Officials wishing to study cheaper courses would have to pay the fees themselves after gaining official approval, it said.
Xinhua also reported that the partners and children of 3,200 government officials at county level or above on the mainland have emigrated over the past year.
The authorities allege that their families emigrating is a way of transferring illegal assets abroad in preparation for cadres eventually fleeing the country.
Nearly 1,000 of the officials have been moved to different posts and punished after their families refused to return to China.
