Frugality working, but bad practice persists
Print Edition
The Chinese government cut spending on overseas trips, vehicles and receptions last year, but bad working practices and corruption remain huge problems.
It spent 5.88 billion yuan (US$ 950 million) on overseas travel, vehicles and entertaining last year, 1.27 billion below budget, Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said yesterday as he presented the central government’s final 2014 accounts to lawmakers.
Overall, 1.62 billion yuan was spent on overseas trips, 356 million less than budgeted; 3.6 billion yuan on the purchase and maintenance of government vehicles, down 528 million; and 661 million yuan on official receptions, down 387 million.
Lou said the reductions were mostly the result of the ongoing frugality campaign, the downsizing of overseas delegations and more rigorous management of vehicles and receptions.
However, bad practice persists, Liu Jiayi, head of the National Audit Office, told yesterday’s session of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee.
An audit of 44 central government departments and 303 institutions found that management of receptions, vehicles and trips was still lax, even though spending had dropped about 28 percent in 2014 from the year before.
Liu said eight groups sent abroad had changed their approved itineraries and extended their stays. In particular, a five-member delegation from Beijing’s Palace Museum altered their travel plans in Chile and Brazil without consent and lied to auditors.
Liu also told the committee that more than 2,200 government officials had been investigated for alleged involvement in major fiscal fraud.
He said the majority of violations took place in sectors involving public funds, state assets and state-owned resources, such as land and mining.
In particular, auditors found that over 780 billion yuan originally earmarked for land transfers was misappropriated by officials.
In one typical case, an official in central China’s Hunan Province and his associates were alleged to have stolen more than 13 million yuan by allowing agencies run by their relatives grant investment subsidies to ineligible companies.
Auditors also uncovered 5 billion yuan in illegal gains by officials and their close affiliates who profited from privileged information concerning state-owned resources, development plans and stocks.
Liu cited an unnamed relative of former China Southern Power Grid deputy general manager Xiao Peng, who saw his stock market investment grow by 50 percent a year for eight consecutive years by taking advantage of insider information from electricity providers.
Malpractice was also detected in news media coverage and in attracting foreign investment where “under-the-table deals were sealed in the name of public welfare and government policy implementation,” Liu added.
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