A traditional dinner for Chinese New Year celebration. [Photo/Agencies]

Village officials in Suzhou, Central China's Anhui province, who used some of the donations to help poor students to pay for a banquet for themselves and the donators, were punished recently. This is not an isolated incident, and the higher authorities need to make greater efforts to stop grassroots officials from violating the rules, says People's Daily:

Some people have defended the officials by saying that the banquet was not luxurious as it cost less than 33 yuan ($5) per person. But the low price is no justification for them to violate the ban on banquets at the public's expense, let alone using money meant to help students from poor families.

Worse, when some journalists reported on the banquet, the officials involved tried to hide the fact instead of apologizing and correcting their wrong. Even the local education department and disciplinary staff, which were supposed to regulate the officials, chose to help them hide the truth instead of performing their duty.

More shameful still is the fact that some media outlets bent their principles and colluded with local officials to try and hide the truth. There are disciplinary agencies for the media, too, and they need to regulate their deeds.

Fortunately, all these efforts of the officials proved in vain and the responsible officials received their deserved disciplinary punishments at last.

However, the incident has revealed there are serious problems with some local authorities, and disciplinary supervision remains ineffective and officials still lack necessary respect for the rules they should abide by.

China is in the midst of an anti-graft campaign aimed at rooting out corruption among bureaucrats. That goal will be impossible without lower-level officials changing their attitudes. Lower-level officials, especially the ones at the grassroots, deal directly with the public and their malpractices hurt residents' interests most.

Therefore, the case in Suzhou deserves our attention. We hope the higher authorities take it as the start of greater efforts to root out such a mindset.