Auditing's role in supervision

Auditor-General Hu Zejun delivered an audit report on the accounts of 650,000 national entities to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on Tuesday, the first of its kind since the Audit Commission of the Communist Party of China Central Committee was established in May.

The submitting of such national account books to the top legislature for its scrutiny will help promote the development of China's audit system.

As an important part of the supervisory system, China's audit work has been greatly strengthened since the 18th CPC National Congress, and it has recovered or saved 2.5 trillion yuan ($391 billion) for the country since then. At the same time, it has detected 238,000 clues to crimes or violations of Party discipline, thus contributing to safeguarding national economic security, deepening reforms and promoting the rule of law and clean governance.

With a problem-solving approach and a lot of data and facts, the report outlined the prominent problems in the implementation of the country's major policies on poverty alleviation, prevention of financial risks and ecological and environmental protection, and the use of some special funds. The identification of such problems fully demonstrates that centralized, comprehensive, authoritative, and efficient audits play an important role in the country's supervisory system.

To better strengthen the audit supervision, the auditing should focus on priority areas and conduct real-time auditing of the implementation of the major policy measures, so as to reveal potential economic and financial risks, and confirm whether the funds earmarked for projects to improve people's livelihood are used appropriately. Through discovering clues to problems and malpractices, the audit work can help China build a modern economic system, promote its high-quality economic development and advance reforms that can plug the institutional loopholes.

Whether the audit authorities can efficiently acquire the needed data and then make good analyses for effective solutions will decide whether the audit work will produce the desired results. The audit departments thus need to keep pace with the trends in various economic and social areas so they can detect problems in a timely manner.