Auditors in Guangdong have found that 5.38 billion yuan
($689.74 million) worth of public funds were spent illegally last
year, an official with the provincial auditing department said.
Of that amount, auditors said 1.09 billion yuan ($139.74
million) had been wasted.
The authorities have ordered the involved officials to recover
950 million yuan ($121.79 million) of the misspent money.
Huang Xuerong, an official with the provincial auditing
department, said auditors investigated 5,261 official bodies,
including government organizations, State-funded public service
organizations and state-owned enterprises last year. Their efforts
saved the province 1.85 billion yuan ($237 million).
He said funds originally marked for education, government
spending and investment in rural development and other projects had
been embezzled and wasted.
"Embezzlement of funds meant to pay for compulsory elementary
and secondary school education was one of the biggest problems we
uncovered," Huang said.
Embezzlement was particularly serious in the comparatively
less-developed northern, eastern and western parts of the
province.
Special funds that should have been used to pay for daily
operations, maintenance and lab facilities at schools in those
areas were instead appropriated to pay teachers and civil
engineering project contractors.
The province had earmarked 3.1 billion yuan ($397 million) worth
of special funds to support the provision of compulsory education
for 9.6 million elementary and secondary school students in rural
areas last year.
Huang did not say how much money from the special fund had been
misused.
During a provincial auditing work conference yesterday,
Guangdong Vice-Governor Zhong Yangsheng said the provincial
auditing system would expand to cover fiscal budgets at all levels
this year to make sure that public funds are used legally.
Massive projects, special funds for the improvement of people's
lives and the operation of state-owned enterprises and banking
institutions will be under particular close supervision.
(China Daily February 2, 2007)