Chinese auditors found 142 million yuan (US$21 million) were wrongly paid to central government departments as reimbursements of fake invoices in June this year, and now 68.31 percent of the funds, or 97.37 million yuan, had been recovered.

The remaining fake invoices, valued at 45.03 million yuan, have been transferred to supervisory organs or judicial authorities for further investigation, according to a report submitted Wednesday to the 18th session of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC), running from Dec 20 to 25. A total of 5,170 invoices were confirmed fake among the 29,363 "problematic" invoices by 56 central departments, says the report.

According to the report, China's National Audit Office (NAO) had recovered 5.34 billion yuan of funds which were found embezzled in 2009, by the end of October this year.

A total of 95 officials were arrested, prosecuted, or convicted in the process, and 1,103 received disciplinary punishments, says the report.

(Xinhua News Agency December 23, 2010)