China greatly reduced the number of major cases involving violation of laws and regulations in the fiscal and financial fields in 2000, Auditor-General Li Jinhua said Thursday.
The amount of money involved in these cases was also much less than in previous years, he said in a report at the ongoing session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.
Li said the National Audit Office discovered 5.6 billion yuan (US$676.3 million) of funds involved in illicit activities after it audited 63 government departments and institutions for the year 2000.
He pointed out that the departments of central and local governments have strengthened the management of fiscal funds. What merits attention is that the cases of misusing funds for relocating people from the construction site of the Three Gorges Dam has decreased remarkably.
Li said that in order to continue to curb illicit use of fiscal funds, the government will strengthen the supervision over the quality of operations in accounting offices and other intermediate agents.
The government will also scrutinize the bank accounts of government institutions in order to find illegally diverted fiscal funds, and accelerate the drafting of regulations on punishing violators of fiscal rules. It will also strengthen the management of funds raised from issuing treasury bonds, he said.
(People's Daily 06/29/2001)
