Villagers in a poor county in Gansu Province are complaining that officials spent millions of yuan building brick walls along a highway that are aimed at shielding high-level officials from the reality of their poverty.
The neatly whitewashed or tiled two-meter-tall walls along the State highway 212 in Zhangxian county are estimated to be five kilometers long.
"The walls were built just to keep our dilapidated houses out of the sight of passing cars, particularly those of senior officials," said a villager in a People's Daily Online video report.
The county is one of 43 in the province listed as a State-level poverty-stricken county. The county's per capita income in rural areas in 2011 was 2,960 yuan ($475).
Villagers said the construction started in October.
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