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1st Ld Writethru: Chinese gov't wastes less but malpractice remains

Xinhua, June 28, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Chinese central government cut expenditure on overseas trips, vehicles and receptions in 2014, but bad working practices and outright corruption remain huge problems.

The central government spent 5.88 billion yuan (about 950 million U.S. dollars) on the so-called "three public consumptions"--overseas travel, vehicles and entertaining--last year, down 1.27 billion from the budgeted figure, finance minister Lou Jiwei said Sunday when presenting the central government final 2014 accounts to lawmakers.

Overall, some 1.62 billion yuan were spent on overseas trips, 356 million less than the budgeted figure; 3.60 billion on the purchase and maintenance of government vehicles, down 528 million; and 661 million yuan on official receptions, down 387 million.

About 10.6 million yuan was spent illicitly on public vehicles, and 11 million on overseas trips.

Lou said that the decreases were mostly the result of the ongoing frugality campaign, downsizing of official delegations traveling overseas and more rigorous management of vehicles and receptions.

China is bedeviled by officials who use expense accounts to go sightseeing abroad in the name of official visits, requisition work vehicles for personal errands, and who pay for luxurious receptions and accommodation from the public purse.

The "eight-point rules" requiring officials to be frugal and to clean up bad work styles have seen unregulated spending gradually ebb.

The government's plan to auction nearly 3,200 vehicles expropriated last year had also helped.

But bad practice persists, China's top auditor Liu Jiayi told Sunday's session of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee.

After auditing 44 central government departments and 303 institutions , auditors found that management of receptions, vehicles and trips was still lax, even though spending dropped about 28 percent in 2014 from the previous year.

Liu said eight groups sent abroad had changed their approved itineraries and extended their stays. In particular, a five-member delegation from Beijing's Palace Museum altered their travel plans in Chile and Brazil without consent and lied to the auditors.

The central government must boost transparency in the use of the "three public consumptions" to further lower its administrative costs, Liu said. Endi