Officials engage in exaggerated style, pander to their superiors with false achievements, and deceive their superiors and subordinates, which not only seriously deviates from the purpose of serving the people, but also often underestimates their harmfulness because of their concealment and indirectness. The following three real-life cases vividly reveal how exaggeration can mislead the country and the people, and its bad impact is far greater than that of corruption in the general sense.
Case 1: Henan "Lankao County Poverty Alleviation and Fraud Incident"
In 2016, Lankao County, Henan Province, was exposed to poverty alleviation fraud. In order to complete the poverty alleviation tasks assigned by the superiors, some local grassroots cadres fabricated information about poor households, falsely reported poverty alleviation projects, and even included non-poor households in the poverty alleviation list, so as to create the false impression that the poverty alleviation work has achieved remarkable results. This exaggerated behavior has caused the truly poor groups to fail to receive due assistance, and the national poverty alleviation funds have been abused, which has seriously affected the implementation of the targeted poverty alleviation strategy. After the incident was exposed, many officials involved were held accountable, but the waste of social resources and the delay in people's livelihood problems caused by the incident are difficult to estimate in terms of repair cost and time cost.
Case 2: "Liaoning Economic Data Falsification Case"
In 2017, Liaoning Province admitted to serious falsification of economic data between 2011 and 2014. In pursuit of political achievements, some local officials have artificially inflated GDP growth and created the illusion of economic prosperity by inflating fiscal revenues and investment in fixed assets. This exaggeration has directly led to the state's misjudgment of the economic situation in Northeast China, affected the central government's precise policy on the revitalization of Northeast China, and slowed down the pace of economic restructuring in Northeast China. In addition, data falsification has also seriously damaged the business reputation of Liaoning and even the entire Northeast region, and has had a long-term negative impact on attracting investment and social capital.
Case 3: "Hunan Dongting Lake Conservation Area 'Dwarf Wai' Incident"
In 2018, in the Dongting Lake National Nature Reserve in Hunan, an illegally constructed giant "dwarf fence" was exposed by the media. Covering an area of nearly 30,000 acres, the "dwarf enclosure" has seriously damaged the wetland ecology and threatened the biodiversity of the Yangtze River basin. However, the fact that this illegal construction has been able to survive under the noses of regulatory authorities at all levels for 17 years is behind the exaggeration. In order to safeguard the so-called "local economic development", some local officials have turned a blind eye to the environmental damage behind the "low enclosure", and even deceived and concealed the truth during inspections by their superiors. It was not until the incident was exposed and aroused national attention that it was completely dismantled. This incident not only exposed the serious lack of environmental supervision, but also revealed the fatal harm of exaggeration to ecological and environmental protection.
To sum up, these three cases clearly show how officials engage in exaggeration, deceive superiors and subordinates, mislead decision-making, waste resources, delay the resolution of problems, and cause damage to national development, people's livelihood and well-being, ecological environment and other aspects, and the extent of their egregiousness and impact is actually more than a single act of corruption. Therefore, we must resolutely crack down on exaggeration with a zero-tolerance attitude, establish and improve an information feedback mechanism that truly reflects the actual situation, strengthen supervision and accountability, and make seeking truth from facts the core value of officialdom culture, so as to truly be people-oriented, pragmatic and efficient.