Vanity projects should be put to use

XINHUA NEWS AGENCY has found that some vanity projects, whose construction was suspended by the central authorities, have been left unfinished and unused for a long time. Rednet.cn commented on Monday:

Most of these vanity projects are luxurious government office buildings, usually in places, especially poorer places, where the spending of government funds, particularly the money that is initially earmarked to be used on public services and poverty alleviation, is poorly supervised, and thus is misappropriated to "boost" the image of the local government.

In fact, as indicated by many graft cases, the vanity projects are often cash cows providing corrupt officials with a means to fatten their pockets with kickbacks from the developers, constructors and decorators.