Illegally used funds of nearly 5.7 billion yuan (US$688 million) were discovered last year during an audit of 909 government officials and executives of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) in South China's Guangdong Province.
According to sources from the provincial auditing department, 23 percent of the funds was lost through wasting of State property by those officials.
Some 90 responsible officials were given administrative punishments, and 70 officials were dismissed from office.
Three officials violating relevant laws were taken to court.
The audit in 2001 was mainly conducted among outgoing officials and those about to be promoted to higher posts, as well as executives of key SOEs and State holding companies.
Those officials are possibly involved in the embezzlement of public funds, apparently ignoring the lessons of formerly revealed corruption cases. The auditing department also vowed to soon publish two operating instructions for assigning economic responsibility to the governmental officials and SOE chiefs.
Last year, only six county heads were audited out of the 95 counties in Guangdong Province.
"This is because high officials are superior to the auditing department," said Xiao Xiancheng, a member of the standing committee of the provincial people's congress, at a recent conference.
Xiao advised the central auditing department to conduct inspections of key officials at the provincial level before they leave their posts.
(China Daily January 10, 2002)
