(April 17, 2002) The chief of the National Audit Office, Li Jinhua, has become a folk hero in China, where his reports on government finances have drawn attention to massive abuses. In 2006, his inspectors will turn their atention to the Three Gorges dam.

(Excerpt)

Beijing: China’s top financial watchdog promised yesterday to probe some of the country’s most high-profile projects, and its investigators said they found illegal abuses of 290 billion yuan ($36.3bn) of government funds in the first 11 months of 2005. A conference of the National Audit Office, which monitors the use of government money – including state-owned companies – heard that 22,000 Chinese officials had been audited up to November, revealing financial abuses to the sum of 35 billion yuan, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Of those, 196 were referred to Communist Party investigation agencies and prosecutors for possible punishment, it said. The chief of the Audit Office, Li Jinhua, has become a folk hero in China, where his annual reports on government finances have drawn attention to massive abuses. Li said on Monday that in 2006 his inspectors will examine the Three Gorges Dam Project – the world’s largest dam, which has drawn criticism from environmental protection groups – as well as Beijing’s Olympics Games preparations and venues, and dozens of government ministries. “If audits uncover bogus budgets, misappropriation, major losses and waste, these will be dealt with sternly under the law and we’ll seek prosecutions,” Li said, according to Xinhua.

Reuters, April 17, 2002