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Misconduct detected in stimulus spending

By Wang Xu (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-28 10:51

Government auditors have detected some misconduct in the implementation of the nation's fiscal stimulus package, but overall they are pleased with how it has progressed, top officials said Wednesday.

The nation unveiled a 4-trillion-yuan ($586-billion) stimulus package last November to prop up the slowing economy. The central government is shouldering 1.18 trillion yuan of the bill, while lower level governments and other investors are expected to account for the rest.

Since last October, the central government has spent 300 billion yuan to carry out the stimulus plan, with most of the investments focused on areas such as affordable housing, infrastructure projects and technological upgrades, Mu Hong, vice-minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a press conference held in Beijing Wednesday.

"Some officials spent the money on unapproved projects or failed to keep accurate records, and those who broke the rules have been punished," said Wang Wei, vice-minister of the Ministry of Supervision.

"But the overall implementation of the stimulus package is in accordance with the central government's requirements and there has been no serious illegal behavior so far."

Since last November, the central government has sent 24 teams to inspect the progress of the stimulus spending.

Dong Dasheng, deputy auditor general of the National Audit Office, said no funds from the stimulus package have been invested in energy-intensive and high-polluting industries, nor have they been spent to build office buildings for the government.

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The officials say a major problem they found in the inspection is that some local governments are having trouble contributing their share of the stimulus package, but the central government's recent move to issue bonds for provincial governments would help them out.

Since the first bond was launched on March 20 for the western region of Xinjiang, the Ministry of Finance had sold 111.8 billion yuan worth of bonds on behalf of 23 provinces and autonomous regions.

Zhang Shaochun, vice-minister of finance, said local governments need to raise 170 billion yuan to match the central government's first two batches of investment of 230 billion yuan. But by the end of last month they had only chipped in 88 billion yuan.

"We are introducing a host of measures to boost the fiscal capacity of local governments, such as bond issuance and lower registered capital requirement," Zhang said.