China's audit authority -- which has achieved popular acclaim
for its exposure of corruption, malpractice and misspent public
funds -- is opening itself to scrutiny by other government
departments to fight graft in its own ranks.
A joint team of officials from government agencies of finance
and supervision is scheduled to start annual inspections of
auditing departments.
The plan was announced by Liu Jiayi, deputy auditor-general of
the National Audit Office (NAO), at an inner meeting on "enhancing
the construction of the audit institutions."
Financial income and expenditure, the use of special funds and
work performance of audit departments will be subject to the
external inspections.
The NAO has published audit reports on government departments
over the past three years, accusing some of them of malpractice
such as misappropriation of funds.
But the audit offices themselves receive no outside scrutiny as
local offices are only under the supervision of their superiors.
The NAO received 440 complaints on "discipline violation" of audit
offices and officials from January 2005 to August this year.
(Xinhua News Agency October 13, 2006)