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Township officials list all spending

By WANG HUAZHONG (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-16 07:21

BEIJING: In the first case of what netizens are calling "naked government", township government officials in Sichuan province have posted online public expenditure in first two months of the year, including spending on receptions, cigarettes, wine and vehicle use.

Besides exposing the high level of expenditure, which often hold the potential for abuse of public assets, the official website of Baimiao town, Bazhong city, is also reporting breakdowns of town' budgets and officials' salaries.

In China, officials reportedly spent at least 120 billion yuan ($18 billion) in 2004 on private use of government vehicles, extravagant dining and wining, as well as frequent trips abroad - all charged on government accounts. Premier Wen Jiabao said in February that this kind of spending "should be and can be controlled" through transparency and democratic monitoring.

Baimiao managed to use only four small accounting tables to record 71 items of public expenditures from Jan 4 to Feb 15, which added up to 32,921.5 yuan.

The minimum entry was "buying one stack of writing paper" that cost 1.5 yuan in January. Government spending on receptions accounted for 65 percent of the months' total expenditure.

The entries even revealed government spending on cigarettes and wine for superiors.

Access to the township website was denied to many netizens on Monday, as the server could not accommodate "so many visitors".

The Baimiao town has a population of about 11,000 people, of which 95.5 percent are farmers.

"We are responding to higher authorities' and locals' requests, and we record every spending item," Ou Mingqing, head of the township government, told China Daily on Monday.

The reporting system covers the spending of 19 local administrator and student village officials, according to Ou. Its reach will extend to other departments of the town and more reporting channels other than the Internet, such as printed materials, will be used to spread the information to more recipients, especially local people.

"Though some people suspect the accuracy of the released information and challenged that the living expenses are too high we will keep the disclosure system going on."

Ou believes disclosure is a "good thing", since it keeps officials from spending without restraint.

The accounting currently tallies specific value, subject, time, operator, reference, auditor and arranger of each spending item, according to Ou.

Some netizens wondered if suspicious spending would not be displayed in the accounting, and whether coverage would be limited by the cumbersome recording process. Many, however, maintained it as "progress and better than not having it".

An official from neighboring Guizhou province, who did not want to be named, said the town's practice was "impossible" to follow, because there may be resistance as the amount of expenditures vary from region to region.