The Chinese people were excited by the release of the government's annual audit report a few years ago, regarding it as a step forward in terms of government transparency and an opportunity to hold corrupt officials to account in front of the whole nation.

But the report is not so inspiring as it was because similar misconducts by government agencies have kept reappearing year after year.

Seven billion yuan (US$910 million) was embezzled by central government departments last year and another 37 billion yuan was misused.

Twenty-eight cases had been handed over to the police and supervision departments by the end of June, with only 35.9 billion yuan retrieved. It is still not clear how many officials have been, or will be, punished.

The "audit storm" staged last year led to the arrest, prosecution or imprisonment of 94 people involved in 106 major cases. The figure is of little weight when you consider the billions of yuan that were misused in 2005.

A major problem is that these audit reports target mainly government departments rather than individual officials. This is the very loophole the greedy rush to take advantage of as costs of violating the law are low and chances of being landed with a serious penalty are small.

It is right that the National Audit Office should inform the public of corruption within the government but this is not enough. The ordinary Chinese people are more concerned about how these crimes are dealt with and whether or not perpetrating officials will be brought to justice.

The State Council recently gave an order to retrieve all misused funds and to punish all those responsible in line with the law.

This lofty-sounding deterrence is all very well but it leads to the following questions: Do we have enough laws to ensure every perpetrator is penalized? Or are people simply flouting the law and getting away with it?

Credit should be given to Shenzhen's city government which took the lead in issuing a new rule earlier this month that would hold chief officials accountable for financial misconduct in their departments and subsidiaries. Why haven't all the other local authorities followed suit?

Making top officials aware that any transgression will put their political careers at stake will go some way to ensuring their motivation to discipline themselves and their departments, as well as strengthening budgetary controls.

(Xinhua News Agency July 20, 2007)