The mainland's top audit office says 300 central government officials, including some department chiefs, abused funds totalling almost 4.4 billion yuan (HK$5.4 billion) last year.
Liu Jiayi, auditor general of the National Audit Office, said several ministries or ministry-level agencies had mis-stated their revenue or violated fiscal regulations, including the Ministry of Finance.
Liu delivered his findings in his annual report to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress yesterday. He found that the abuse of public funds involved 50 central ministries and agencies and reached 4.39 billion yuan.
The auditor general said there was a growing trend of corrupt officials taking bribes through middlemen, such as by requiring individuals or businesses to apply for government approval or bid for tenders through consultancies linked to the officials.
The audit report also raised concerns about unreported items of central- government income and expenditure. It cited 6.2 billion yuan of income and 1 billion yuan of expenditure, both related to foreign aid since 2008, that do not appear in the books of the commerce, health and agriculture ministries.
Liu said the Ministry of Finance had made an inaccurate report to the NPC in its budget implementation report last year, claiming 1.92 billion yuan less in revenue than it actually had.
Liu said the Ministry of Railways had illegally shortened the application period for companies bidding on infrastructure projects on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway. The period was cut to 13 hours from at least five days. That reduced opportunities for companies to take part in the bidding, Liu said.