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Fraud uncovered in stimulus spending

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-05-19 09:34

BEIJING -- China's National Audit Office (NAO) said Monday that some minor, but significant, irregularities had been found at the end of the first quarter of its oversight of the country's stimulus package.

Lack of local support funds and imperfect measures for policy implementation, as well as some fake contracts and receipts for discounted notes, were the main problems that needed fixing, the NAO said in its third report of the year.

Cash from such discounted notes had gone into bank deposits to profit  from the interest margin instead of going into the real economy, said the report.

Related readings:  No major problem found in stimulus fund use: NAO  No abuse found in China's stimulus plan  Chinese shares up 1.74% on further govt stimulus  Stimulus package has started bearing fruits  Stimulus helps meet green goals

Meanwhile, of the 100 billion yuan ($14.64 billion) allocated by the central government last year, all had been disbursed. Another 130 billion yuan appropriated in February had been mostly distributed, NAO said.

The 230 billion yuan investment was included in the 4-trillion-yuan package announced late last year to combat the global economic downturn.

The NAO said it would strengthen its scrutiny of the implementation of the stimulus and fully expose waste, fraud and abuse.

It would also examine the impact of the global downturn on companies' sustainable development to improve their competitiveness.

The implementation of the massive stimulus package has been an object of nationwide attention. Early this year, auditors vowed to oversee the implementation of macro-control measures and guarantee their timeliness and effectiveness.