Opinion | China's state audit uncovers long list of misdeeds resulting in loss of billions of yuan

The national auditor has opened a can of worms, exposing major funding irregularities including a whopping 366 billion yuan (HK$463 billion) missing from land sales over six years and millions of yuan spent on high-end alcohol at state-owned firms.

Briefing lawmakers on the audit of the central government's 2014 budget on Sunday, National Audit Office head Liu Jiayi said the authorities had investigated more than 2,200 government officials for major fiscal fraud.

One report, which looked into land sale revenue, checked land sales and cultivable land reserves from 2008 to 2013. The audit covered more than two million hectares of land across the nation.

Auditors found irregularities totalling nearly 781 billion yuan, as officials misappropriated funds earmarked for land transfers to fill gaps in other expenses.

A massive 366.4 billion yuan was missing from the sale of land across the nation, the report showed. Another 147 billion yuan of transactions had been fabricated to bump up revenue accounts, it said.

Xinhua highlighted one case in which Hunan development and reform commission chief economist Yang Shifang and his associates allegedly stole over 13 million yuan by allowing three agencies run by their relatives to grant investment subsidies to firms that were not eligible for them.

Auditors also found that several officials and their affiliates made a total of 5 billion yuan in illegal gains from their access to privileged information concerning state-owned resources, development plans and stocks.