China's top auditor will focus more on government and
institutional spending, increasing transparency, and strengthening
internal control and management to improve the quality of auditing
throughout the nation.?
"These are major objectives I want to achieve within my tenure,"
said Li Jinhua, auditor-general of the National Audit Office (NAO),
in an interview with the People's Daily.
Li was re-elected as top auditing administrator in March 2003
for another five-year tenure.
Program results auditing aims at checking whether government
programs and activities are meeting their stated goals and
objectives. Li says his office will devote half of its efforts to
the goal between now and 2007.
Currently, the auditing mainly focuses on whether money is used
according to laws and regulations.
The NAO discovered a huge
waste of funds during the construction of a dozen airports in
2002.
To promote transparency, Li has promised to make the audits
available to the public in a more comprehensive way.
"All problems dug out in a specific audit will be released on
the website of the National Audit Office. The public can also get
printed audit bulletins free of charge," Li said.
By making public their reports, citizens can gain a better
understanding of how money is being spent and scrutinize spending,
said Ren Jianming, vice-director of the Anti-corruption and
Governance Research Center at Tsinghua
University.
The NAO has made two proposals to the top legislature, which is
now considering amending the Audit Law, which was adopted in
1994.
One proposal suggests the establishment of a committee that is
comprised of professionals who would review the audits.
The other puts forth the idea of inviting another agency to
examine the auditing office to ensure fairness.
The NAO, which Li calls the "watchdog of State property," has a
constitutional duty to find out how the public's money is being
spent.
Last month, Li told the national legislature that public funds
had been misused by many ministries and commissions under the State
Council last year.
The report stirred a national "audit storm," attracting the
attention of the general public and Premier Wen Jiabao.
According to the report, 41 ministries and commissions
appropriated as much as 1.42 billion yuan (US$171.56 million) of
funding, which had been dedicated to special projects, for the
construction of residential and office buildings for their own
use.
In response, Premier Wen said all of the people who had violated
the laws and regulations had to be dealt with seriously.
Known as the "iron-handed auditor-general," Li says the NAO has
received strong support from the central government and top
leadership.
The office's jurisdiction will be expanded to include all
central government departments, Communist Party of China (CPC)
departments and State-funded institutions, the China Youth
Daily reported Li as saying on Tuesday.
(China Daily July 10, 2004)