In most regions, the audit office has set up an economic auditing system for officials working at township and county organizations, Linghu said.

Statistics indicate that during the past two years, 44,081 officials, including 10 former ministers, vice-ministers and key State firm executives, were audited.

About 1,500 of them were found to have problems. As a result, 500 were removed from their new posts and 1,000 were forwarded to judicial departments.

Losses worth 5 billion yuan (US$600 million) were attributed to their poor performances. Embezzlement of 300 million yuan (US$36 million) was also uncovered.

The economic auditing focuses on three areas. One is whether officials have properly fulfilled their economic duties; second is whether they have caused losses by violating financial regulations; and third is whether they have broken any laws or regulations.

"Our aim is to provide references so our official appointment system can tell whether a person should be appointed," Linghu said.

He said many financial problems could be avoided if officials properly use their power and carefully fulfill their duties.

China began to implement economic auditing in 1998 in an effort to curb corruption and losses of large amounts of State assets due to negligence.

Linghu said auditing has already been expanded to officials above the county level, and even to ministry leaders in an effort to bridle corruption in high-ranking officials and to better oversee officials.

In 2001, 336 department directors from across the nation were audited.

"We expect to launch the auditing of all government and Party leaders above the county level by 2002," he said.

Economic auditing of senior State-owned enterprise executives would also be expanded, Linghu added. The State has attached much importance to the auditing of officials.

State Councilor Wang Zhongyu said recently that audits would be routine for official management after two to three years of practice.

In addition to the standing officials, those leaving office will also be audited.

Linghu said a growing number of Party and government officials are expected to be audited when they leave their current positions within the next two years.

The so-called leaving-post auditing "has proven effective in strengthening the examination and supervision of officials," said Linghu. "It serves as an alert for officials."

(China Daily August 7, 2002)