100 billion lost to corruption and mismanagement in Guangdong

An audit covering the period between 2000 and 2005 revealed sums "married" to accounts of officials, gifts, and also real waste. More frequent inspections are necessary.

Beijing (AsiaNews/SCMP) – Guangdong frittered away more than 35 billion yuan (around 4.35 billion US dollars) worth of public funds between 2000 and the beginning of 2005. Another 65 were wasted or misused. This was revealed by an official audit.

"The illegal behaviour included embezzling public money, spending public funds on lavish dinners and gifts, and shifting public funds to personal accounts," Zeng Shouxi, director of the Guangdong Provincial Audit Department, said in a report released on 8 October. Meanwhile, 4.7 billion yuan coming from taxpayers' money were "wasted" and another 61 billion (7.5 billion dollars) were "misused".

The report is the result of a financial audit carried out on 10,772 public officials. Of these, 231 are under investigation for "financial problems", 105 were submitted to disciplinary measures, 36 were dismissed from their jobs and 71 were demoted.

Meanwhile, 747 officials were promoted for "reporting on corrupt officials and collaborating with investigators".

The "vanished" funds had been earmarked for the realisation of infrastructural projects, and restructuring and environmental protection programmes. There is talk of more frequent checks in the future as well as the auditing of accounts of officials and directors of state-owned enterprises. From 2007, inspections will target each official "at least once" during his term in office or when it expires.

Yin Ping, a Nanjing University professor, warned that such investigations would not succeed in putting a stop to corruption. "Audits can only identify corruption after it has happened," Yin said. "The fight against corruption is a systemic project and the prevention and punishment are also very important." A large number of auditors and adequate financial resources were necessary for such an undertaking, he added.

Yin was also critical of the inaccuracy of "evaluation criteria" to ascertain liability. "Some wrong decisions are the work of people who have left their posts and some are joint decisions by government and party officials, so we have to specify standards and criteria in order to find out who is really liable."

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