Two more groups of officials have been punished for using public funds to travel overseas.

Four officials with the Hainan provincial bureau of the salt industry, including bureau chief Xing Fuhuang and deputy chief Shi Qizhe, were issued Party and administrative penalties, Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday.

The bureau organized three groups of mid-level and high-ranking officials to travel abroad on purported "business tours". The report did not mention their destinations.

But all three trips were solely sightseeing excursions for which no work arrangements were made. They were funded by 629,800 yuan of public money.

The discipline inspection commission under the CPC of Hainan's provincial committee has called upon the officials to repay the money.

In a related case, Hubei province-based Chutian Jinbao News reported that a business tour group from the provincial capital Wuhan spent 13 days in the United States and Canada but used only half a day to meet with the party that extended the invitation.

The top official leading the group, whom the report did not identify, has been sacked.

The two incidents are the latest in a string of such cases local discipline inspection departments have exposed this year, as the departments honed in on the issue in 2009. Deputy director of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention Qu Wanxiang told the China News Agency in March that the bureau aimed to solve the problem within three years.

A special campaign started last May has proven fruitful. It had denied 550 proposed but ineligible trips involving 4,000 people by January, the Discipline Inspection Daily reported on Jan 13.

Qu said the number of officials traveling abroad on government money had increased in recent years.

Common illegal practices included purchasing or counterfeiting invitation letters, changing itineraries or extending stays abroad without approval, and asking subordinate institutions or enterprises to cover costs, Chutian Jinbao news reported.

Many provinces and municipalities issued detailed rules against the practices, and began reviewing last year's records to uncover illegitimate tours.

"The review of past records won't continue," Li Chengyan, head of Peking University's Clean Government Research Center, told China Daily by phone on Wednesday.

"The discipline inspection department should focus on establishing a system to strictly review and inspect officials' overseas trips.

"To stem the trend, officials should also be educated to change their belief that overseas trips are incentives intended to award their work performances."

(China Daily April 23, 2009)