Li said in many countries, details of national budgets were available in bookstores. They showed how much money was allocated to every department and for what purposes.

He said the office would again name central government departments with fiscal transgressions in a report to a national legislature session next year.

This appeared to quash speculation that the office will stop mentioning names for fear of offending too many people.

The office had focused on irregularities in central government department budgets because of their exemplary role, said Li.

"If they fail to act according to law, how can they demand local authorities abide by the law," said Li.

The practice of announcing the irregularities, known as an "audit storm", has proved effective in promoting image-conscious government departments to mend their ways.

However, Li said government departments would be given more than a month to conduct self-examinations before this year's audit.

"If they find and correct problems themselves, we will not write them down in our audit reports," said Li.

The ultimate purpose of the audit was to "solve problems", he said, adding the auditors hoped to identify fewer problems because the audit was so costly. Better internal management and legal propriety would save auditors a lot of trouble.

Li said the "audit storm" of the recent years had born results. The overall budget management of central government departments had been improving each year.

"It's possible that after a few more years, central government departments will be disentangled from major irregularities in general," he said.

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