Had enough of local governments that have built modern, splashy complexes? Here is a good example of a taxpayer money saver, a local government in Henan that works out of muddy-walled shacks. Translated from Guangzhou Daily (photo: the Lushi county party branch office) via sina.com:

Lushi County (Âç¢Ê∞èÂéø) in the western border of Henan Province, famed for its poverty for decades, has recently gained a new reputation of frugality in housing its many party cadres in muddy flats with peeling walls and rooms without heating or air conditioning. Roofs are prone to leak in rainy days and workers climb up the roof tiles to work on them while cadres keep working underneath. Most “offices” have one computer, if any, and people have to share the facility and stomach the slowness of machines that are ages old.

County officials were surprised to learn that their hometown had made headlines in newspapers and earned itself a celebrity status in the midst of exposes of many local governments that run to great lengths, financially, in building splashy, excessively modern and expensive office complexes and facilities. There’s also suspicion among some saying that Lushi has been doing this to hype up some glamour, and glory, onto itself. [Full Text in Chinese]

Interviewed by a reporter from the Beijing News, party secretary Wang Zhenwei (ÁéãÊå؉ºü in photo) confessed the inconvenience of working out of shack-like offices, sharing public toilets and running water taps. As a matter of fact, Wang said, all county party branch cadres since 1950s have been working in this condition and he doesn’t feel sad, nor glorious.

There was once when a real estate developer who wanted to buy the land under the compound, and the deal could well afford the county to build a nice office building. It never happened. Wang said they have a lot more priorities, such as health care, education, transport and poverty alleviation. Asked when shack offices will become history, Wang said there’s no timetable for that. For one, he worried about provoking a bad relationship between the government and the people, which was for a while pretty tense. And he is also worried that other government agencies would follow suit with grand infrastructure projects. [Full Text in Chinese]