An ongoing nationwide audit campaign has resulted in two ministries being found to have misused and misappropriated funds.

The ministries of railways and personnel were found to have discrepancies against last year's budgets, according to a report released by the National Audit Office (NAO) on its official website yesterday.

The Ministry of Railways was discovered to have illegally held 1.72 billion yuan (US$208 million) in 2003. They had applied for 23.88 billion yuan (US$2.9 billion) for railway construction, which was approved by the Ministry of Finance.

However, they reported using only 18.26 billion yuan (US$2.2 billion) to the National Development and Reform Commission for the planned projects during the same period, 5.62 billion yuan (US$690 million) less than allocated.

They granted a total of 22.16 billion yuan (US$2.7) to subordinate units, leaving a reserve of 1.72 billion yuan at the end of the year.

Their final budget report added 308 million yuan for changes to projects, whilst the rest of the detained funds were appropriated, the NAO said.

Similarly, the Ministry of Personnel illegally used a budget surplus from the previous year, worth 930,000 yuan (US$112,500), to buy three automobiles in 2003, according to the NAO.

They did not list the purchases in their budget, nor did they present a supplementary report before the end of last June, as required.

The ministry was also found to have misused nearly 4.5 million yuan (US$544,000) of surplus from infrastructure construction to buy 16 apartments for employees, also not included in their annual budget.

All the mentioned government organizations have been informed to immediately rectify their problems.

(Xinhua News Agency November 19, 2004)