Officials used public purse to pay for holidays

BEIJING - Eight officials with the Jilin provincial coal bureau, including bureau chief Zhao Quanzhou, have been issued Party and administrative penalties for using public funds for leisure trips overseas.

Fifty-one high-ranking and mid-level officials from the bureau were organized into nine groups for travel abroad under the guise of business trips from 2007 to 2009, State broadcaster CCTV reported.

"The Party leadership group deliberately organized trips abroad using public funds beginning in 2007. Zhao even mentioned the trips in a Party group meeting," said Guo Songjiang, an official with the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention under the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).