A teaching official has died in Sichuan province after drinking heavily with education officials.
On December 12 four officials from the Peng’an county bureau of education visited Zhonghua Primary School where Duan Weizhong worked as head of teacher affairs. They accompanied Duan and some of his colleagues to lunch in the school canteen where the school staff toasted the officials with alcohol. Duan went on to get so wasted that his co-workers sent him home.
At 6am the next day Duan’s wife noticed his face was pale and called an ambulance. Duan was pronounced dead on their arrival.
One of the officials who drank with Duan has been suspended from his duties.
Binge drinking is big among Chinese officials – in 2011 the annual cost of alcohol for public servants was the same amount as spent on national defence. The practise came under fire last month when a person who accompanied an official to a banquet in Heilongjiang province died of alcohol poisoning. The official was demoted and had his Communist Party membership revoked for a year. Thousands of officials have also been punished in the past year for violating austerity guidelines brought in to limit such problems.
[Image via SCMP]
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