The National Audit Office of China has released a report which shows that ten Chinese provinces and municipalities had illegally spent a total of CNY2.693 billion from farming aid funds, of which CNY5.8374 million was used to purchase houses and cars.
It is learned that NAO audited the use of farming-aid fund in ten Chinese provinces and municipalities: Henan, Gansu, Shanxi, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Hunan, Fujian, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Chongqing; and found that there was a general problem in the allocation, use and management of farming aid funds in these regions.
NAO said the use of some of the funds did not achieve the desired results. Among the 86 farming aid projects that were finished by the end of 2007, 32 had not reached the stated requirements or the set goals, and these accounted for 37% of the total.
NAO also found that there was inadequate investment on farming related infrastructure, and the construction of flood prevention and drought control systems were especially backward. According to NAO, between 2003 and 2007, only CNY131 million was invested in flood and drought control in eight of the ten regions, and this accounted for about 4% of the total expenditure. And by March 2008 the number of water monitoring stations in these eight regions had not reached half of what was expected.
