A report released by the National Audit Office on Monday detailed additional evidence of fraud, waste, mismanagement and irregular procurement, linked to the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway, totaling billions of yuan, Xinhua reported.
Auditors found that the Ministry of Railways shortened the applications process by limiting the time for applicants to obtain application documents and then giving them a foreshortening period in which to submit them.
Purchases that were not made through the standard bidding process totaled 849 million yuan. It was also discovered that 413 million yuan originally allocated for train windshields was wasted after design specifications were changed.
By the end of June 2011, at least 196.3 billion yuan - compared with an estimated budget of 163.8 billion yuan - had been spent on land expropriation and construction linked to the project.
The auditors also found evidence of wrongdoing by local governments totaling 491 million.
Original web page here