The municipal government of Guangzhou, capital of southern China's Guangdong Province, has said it will use its financial budget to pay for the social security fund that has been misappropriated if the money cannot be recovered.

The Information Times reports that by the end of 1999, over one billion yuan's worth of the city's social security fund have been misused for various investments. So far, over 3.6 million yuan has been recovered and over 100 million yuan is expected to be recovered. But that still leaves a shortfall of over 5 million yuan.

Zhang Guangning, mayor of Guangzhou, was quoted as saying that the government is planning to use the city's fund risk reserve, now totaling 1.1 billion yuan, to cover the shortfall, in order to guarantee the legitimate rights of those covered by the fund.

Nearly 31 billion yuan of social security funds was misused nationwide last year, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

China has carried out five nationwide audits of social security funds since 1998, revealing embezzlement in 16 of the 31 provinces in 2004 and 1.7 billion yuan misappropriated in 2005.

The widespread of embezzlement has been attributed to inadequate laws, a lack of transparency and inadequate public supervision, Xinhua news agency has said in an earlier report.

(CRIENGLISH.com April 3, 2007)