The Ministry of Supervision said on its website yesterday that, though over 55.79 million yuan (US$6.79 million) of state subsidies to people displaced by the Three Gorges Project has been embezzled, the overall administration of the funds compared favorably to most other projects.

The government allocated 45.3 billion yuan (US$5.48 billion) to compensate about one million people who had to move to make way for the project's construction, of which 0.123% was stolen in the last 12 years.

According to the ministry, nearly 48 million yuan (US$5.8 million) of the misappropriated funds have been retrieved so far.

Between 1993 and 2004, central China's Hubei Province and Chongqing Municipality in southwest China have dealt with 327 cases of misuse of relocation funds. Of the 369 violators involved, 23 were county-level officials, all of whom have been punished according to law.

Former teller Wang Sumei of the Relocation Bureau of Wanzhou District of Chongqing was sentenced to life imprisonment in May 1999 for embezzling more than 1.3 million yuan (US$157,200).

Huang Faxiang, former director of the Bureau of Land and Resources of Fengdu County, was executed in December 2003 for embezzling more than 12 million yuan (US$1.45 million).

(Xinhua News Agency June 22, 2005)