Guangzhou govt issues new rules for expenses

The General Office of the Guangzhou City Government has recently issued a notice requiring its departments and bureaus to make their expenses public every year in uniform statements and at the same time.

The notice said the budgets and final accounts of government expenses on official receptions, vehicle purchases, and overseas trips?- the so-called sangong expenditures?- should be open to public scrutiny and supervised by the public and media.

The move aims to make government operations more transparency and prevent corruption, the notice said.

Those who refuse to make their expenses public, or lie in their reports, will be held responsible, the notice said.

By the end of November, all the departments and bureaus had published their 2011 expenses on their websites.

Some government departments and bureaus in Guangdong's capital were criticized by residents and netizens after they admitted to spending more than 52.47 million yuan ($8.36 million) on overseas trips in 2011.

In their annual financial final accounts, which were published online at the end of last month, it was revealed that a total of 5,149 government officials and civil servants used public money to visit 33 countries and regions for study and official visits, investigations, exchanges, international conferences and trade fairs.