Shanghai's medical, pension and housing funds have lost or misspent hundreds of millions of dollars, the city's top lawmaking body has been told.
Financial abuse, negligence and questionable investments were behind the irregularities, Municipal Audit Bureau chief Jin Zhengde told the Shanghai People's Congress this week. It is unclear how much public money was squandered, but the litany of abuse outlined by the audit bureau and published in yesterday's Shanghai Daily prompted Standing Committee chairman Chen Tiedi to vow that officials who violated accounting laws would be punished.
'Officials should draw a lesson and recognise that money is entrusted to them by the people, and they have a responsibility to safeguard it,' said Ms Chen.
Among the many indiscretions uncovered in the bureau's report on 1999 income and expenses, Shanghai's pension fund agency last year used 257 million yuan (HK$242 million) in interest revenue to make commercial property investments. It has added 137 million yuan to its real estate portfolio this year.
The city's medical insurance bureau failed to hand over 16 million yuan listed on bureau books last year while three re-employment bureaus misused 56 million yuan for unspecified purposes, with 55 million yuan of the funds still unaccounted for.
According to the report, 1.2 billion yuan in overdue housing fund loans remained uncollected.
