Official sacked for costly lifestyle

Civil servants should listen to the public and behave in a manner that is appropriate to their status, a senior Nanjing official was quoted as saying in the Yangtze Evening News yesterday.

Zhu Shanlu, Party secretary of Nanjing, Jiangsu province, was speaking following the news that a fellow city official, Zhou Jiugeng had been sacked on Sunday after a photograph showing him wearing an expensive watch and smoking high-priced cigarettes was posted on the Internet.

The action shows how the Internet is becoming an increasingly important medium to monitor officials, Zhu said.