The annual auditing of the central government's budget which
would often discover irregularities and even some economic crimes,
was once described as "a loud thunder with only a few rain drops"
referring to the lack of efforts in rectifying the irregularities
and punishing the perpetrators.
We are finally feeling the rain when an announcement published
yesterday said 4.195 billion yuan that had been misappropriated had
been returned by October last year and 88 perpetrators had been
arrested for their involvement and 104 disciplined.
We are greatly relieved to find in the announcement that 95 percent
of irregularities in the central government budget have been
rectified and the misuse of the social security fund has been
addressed in many provinces and cities.
The announcement sends the message that our auditing office is
playing its role as a watchdog not only to catch the thieves but
also to keep an eye on the process of making them return the money
stolen and have them punished.
That our auditing departments are playing an increasingly
important role in supervising how public money is spent and the
great concern the general public has shown to the annual auditing
report is a sign that public awareness is being addressed.
Yet, we face great challenges to make our auditing departments
play an even more active role, and a long way to go in making our
civil servants understand they have an obligation to strictly abide
by rules in spending public money.
The painful truth is that auditors discover the same
irregularities that were found the year before. This has been
verified by the auditing reports of the National Audit Office in
past years.
The auditing report of 2007 is yet to come out. It will be
published in the middle of this year. So we do not know whether the
situation has improved.
The fact that auditing reports in past years failed to mention
the name of some departments where irregularities had taken place
suggests that there are still hurdles in rectification of the
problems.
Auditor-General Li Jinhua promised last year his 2008 auditing
report would make public all the problems discovered and the names
of departments involved. We hope he will honor his pledge. It will
promote rule-abiding awareness among civil servants at all
levels.
(China Daily February 1, 2008)