“More than US$2.5 billion used to fight water pollution in China was misused” according to Chinese auditors

Over the last couple of days both Reuters and China Central Television (cctv.com) have reported that “China’s top auditor has found that 17.6 billion yuan (about 2.56 billion U.S. dollars) of fiscal funds earmarked in 2016 for pollution control and resource management was not used effectively”.

China’s National Audit Office (NAO) sent inspection teams to 18 provincial regions and found that “a total of 397 water pollution protection projects had failed to achieve desired effect, and some environment funds were not distributed in accordance with special protection plans”.

According to cctv.com the NAO reported that in December 2016 more than “3,000 people had been punished and 160 billion yuan in funds “rectified” during an audit of the 2015 budget”.

Since the findings of the audit were released, “local authorities in the 18 provincial regions have improved the distribution and use of more than 3 billion yuan of environment funds, and pushed forward the progress of 77 water pollution control projects”.

Full articles can be found at the following links: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-china-auditor-says-176-billion-yuan-of-funds-to-fight-water-pollution-misused-xinhua-2017-1?IR=T and http://english.cctv.com/2017/01/31/ARTIdGApdrxrIez7yKHGl5e4170131.shtml