China's auditors said on Saturday they have uncovered inappropriate use of over 32 billion yuan (US$4 billion) in the first half of this year, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The National Audit Office found that 22.3 billion yuan (US$2.75 billion) was used in violation of financial regulations and 9.9 billion yuan (US$1.22 billion) was wasted after auditing 184 institutions in the first six months.

The officers said they had sent 98 cases to the judicial and discipline sectors, with 252 people involved in embezzlement and other inappropriate uses of public money.

Through auditing, the office had directly saved 630 million yuan (US$78 million) of public money.

The office also offered 650 pieces of advice to the audited institutions, urging them to improve management and increase benefits.

About one week ago, after auditing 784 key agriculture-related projects, the office discovered that 19.2 billion yuan (US$2.4 billion) of government funds for supporting agriculture was embezzled and 890 million yuan (US$110 million) wasted in 2004 and 2005.

The Beijing Audit Office on Wednesday presented the Beijing Municipal People's Congress with an audit report on the city's budgetary revenues and expenditures for fiscal year 2005, exposing many cases of inappropriate use of public fund.

The office found 19 departments embezzled public funds of 174 million yuan (US$21.5 million) and used the money to construct office buildings and buy cars.

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