(Clearwisdom.net)
According to a report from the Central News Agency in Taipei on June 19, the Guangdong 21st Century Economic Report quoted officials at the Beijing Supervision Office of the Ministry of Finance, which disclosed that the special funds set aside for fighting against SARS and preventing the epidemic have been abused by some government units, who even seized the opportunity to buy high-priced cars and computers. The matter is very serious.
According to the report, since June 10, 2003, the Beijing Office of the Ministry of Finance audited without notice the finances of the Dongcheng District, Xicheng District, Haidian District, Chaoyang District and Chongwen District in Beijing, where the SARS epidemic has been severe. They investigated whether the procedure for using the special funds for fighting SARS was reasonable and whether there were any violations of the law in terms of public funds handling.
Beijing officials admitted that the financial organs in some districts and counties privately embezzled from the special fund. Some even violated the rules and made a padded account.
For example, a Central Expenditure Unit in Mainland China used the excuse that they planned to buy facilities for preventing and curing SARS, but they actually bought high-priced cars and computers instead. One unit recorded that the funds had gone to buying sealed station wagons for isolating patients, yet the money was actually used to buy brand-new cars. In an attempt to pass the audit by the Ministry of Finance, some units purposely took out a lot of receipts which were irrelevant to the prevention of SARS. Some units' expenditures did not balance out with the account, and so they asked for an increase to their annual budget to accommodate their increased spending.
The article indicated that abusing the funds intended for fighting against SARS is not limited to Beijing. According to the audit by the Bureau of Finance, in Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang and Hunan, there has been abuse of the funds intended for prevention of SARS there, too, and thus the abuse has extended all over Mainland China.
