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Throwing good money after bad

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-05 07:52

Neither the American basketball player who scattered cash nor the students who jostled for it should be blamed for the incident in the poor county of Hunan. More to the point is that local officials should not have squandered taxpayers'money by organizing such an expensive match, says an article in Yangcheng Evening News. Excerpts:

Last month, a US basketball team, which was invited by the sports bureau of Jishou, Hunan province, for a game, visited a local middle school. Before the team left, a player suddenly tossed some cash out through the bus window. This led to an unseemly scramble by the nearby middle school students.

The incident has stirred an intense debate among the public. Some feel ashamed of the behavior of the students and regard it as an insult to our national honor. Others blame the American basketball player for deliberately humiliating the Chinese people by throwing currency notes to make them jostle for it.

However, it is the local officials, not the students, nor the American player, who are to blame for this unfortunate incident. It is natural for teenagers to make a grab for the currency notes; they are too young to resist temptation.

Constrained by the poor natural and economic conditions, the living standard of the common people in western Hunan province remains extremely low. Therefore, people there have a stronger desire for money. So it is not surprising that the students were falling over each other for the cash scattered by the American basketball player.

But we should not lose sight of a more important issue. In such a poor county, the local officials could easily spend a large sum of money to organize international basketball games. Why should a county, which is strapped for cash, need to indulge in the luxury of an international event in the first place? It must have been thought up as a project to satisfy the personal interest of some officials.

The top priority for these officials ought to be developing the local economy and lifting people out of poverty rather than squandering taxpayers' money.

(China Daily 06/05/2009 page8)