Six officials from Shanghai's Tongji University have been punished for violating Communist Party rules on frugality, the Education Ministry announced yesterday.
Four people were disciplined for arranging free trips for two groups of staff in 2013.
The first was a visit for 44 teachers to the United Kingdom, while the second involved 33 tutors visiting the Huangguoshu waterfall in southwest China's Guizhou Province during a break from a conference they were attending in Guiyang, the provincial capital.
Everyone involved has been ordered to payback their share of the cost of the tours, the ministry said.
Two other people — the director of the university's office of retired staff affairs and the head of that office's administration department — were punished for using college funds to buy shopping cards for 19 officials.
That offense also happened in 2013 and the officials involved have since repaid the equivalent value of the cards they received, the ministry said.
Wu Weimin, a spokesman for the university, told Shanghai Daily he was disappointed by the ministry's findings.
"It is a pity to see such violations in our university and we will work harder to ensure there are no repeats. This should be a wake-up call to all staff to abide by Party rules," he said.
