Premier Calls for Thorough Investigation into Audit Cases

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji recently urged audit officials to "deeply" and "thoroughly" investigate cases involving serious financial infringement.

Major efforts should be given to key auditing problem, and those held responsible in the cases should be punished by the law, Zhu stressed.

State Councilor Wang Zhongyu conveyed Zhu's instruction when addressing the ongoing National Audit Working Conference Thursday, January 4.

There are still quite a few serious and complicated counterfeiting cases, Zhu said, pointing out that more state assets will be lost if auditing and accounting are not handled correctly.

The key does not lie in the number of cases audited, but whether the cases have been dealt with thoroughly, Zhu was quoted as saying.

Zhu was particularly concerned whether the problems disclosed in auditing were immediately handled.

During the conference, Wang pointed to the regulating and straightening of the economic order in the market as an important task for this year.

Wang called for the speeding up of the process of introducing information technology into audit work.

Large Share of Embezzled Public Funds Retrieved

A total of 19.2 billion yuan (some US$2.3 billion) of public funds, which had been embezzled, were retrieved by the Chinese audit sector last year.

This was revealed by Li Jinhua, auditor-general of Chinese National Audit Office, at the ongoing national audit working conference in Beijing Thursday, January 4.

Focusing on the examinations of key sectors, departments and special funds, the Chinese audit sector audited more than 100,000 public organizations between January and November last year.

According to Li, audit departments at all levels in China audited the public budget performance thoroughly last year, with the collection, allocation, appropriation, and implementation of the budgets as their focus.

So far, most of the embezzled public funds, such as the water conservation funds, aid-the-poor funds and Three Gorges resettlement funds, have been retrieved back to the original channels.






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