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.