BEIJING, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- China's State Council, or the
Cabinet, has ordered government agencies to take immediate actions to rectify
the financial abuses exposed by the National Audit Office (NAO) in late August.
All units that misused funds were required to report
their rectification results to the State Council before Oct. 31, according to an
executive meeting of the Cabinet Thursday, which was presided over by Premier
Wen Jiabao.
The NAO found 29.38 billion yuan (4.32 billion U.S.
dollars) worth of "problematic" expenditures after auditing the 2007 state
budget spending of 53 ministerial-level departments and 368 of their affiliates.
It also found 258 million yuan of disaster relief
funds were embezzled and used for administrative expenses or government
construction projects.
The meeting decided that more central agencies shall
make public their budgets. Eleven of them did this last year.
The Cabinet also reviewed a draft ordinance
complementary for the enforcement of the Labor Contract Law, and decided that
further revision has to be done before it could be enacted.
The Labor Contract Law took effect on Jan. 1 and has
raised concern in China's corporate world because of its enhanced protection of
laborers' rights.
BEIJING, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- A top Chinese official vowed
on Thursday that any corruption in the use of quake relief would be severely
punished.
Corruption, embezzlement or manipulation of bidding for
projects that cause serious consequences would be severely punished, said He
Guoqiang, secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for
Discipline Inspection. Full story
