Chinese auditors last year sniffed out fewer problems in budget fund using in the country's centrally administrated departments than in 2005, according to top auditor Li Jinhua.

The National Audit Office (NAO) found 1.2 billion yuan (about 150 million U.S. dollars) of budget fund was misused by 48 central government departments last year, much smaller than the 5.51 billion yuan of 2005, Li,NAO auditor-general told an annual auditing work conference on Monday.

Li warned, however, problems in the affiliates of the central departments loomed large.
The agency discovered 4.2 billion yuan was misused and 1.97 billion yuan wasted last year after auditing 274 affiliated departments, Li said.

The annual budget auditing covered 137,000 governmental departments, organizations and state-owned enterprises nationwide.

According to Li, the NAO will focus its work on budget management and implementation of financial regulations in departments of the central government in 2007.

Li also urged auditors to intensify budget auditing at local levels.

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