NO explanations have been provided in the government’s budget report for the budget adjustment last year, triggering doubts among legislatures over the ongoing legislative session.

    The budget on “other expenditures” was set at 5.36 billion yuan (US$851 million) at the beginning of last year, which was later raised to more than 10 billion yuan, according to the report, the Daily Sunshine reported yesterday.

    However, how the “other expenditures” were spent is not explained in the report.

    According to the national budget law, any adjustment to the budget set at the beginning of a year must go with a detailed explanation, said Wu Junliang, founder of BudgetofChina.com, a nonprofit Web site to promote transparency of government spending.

    “The government’s total budget expenditure was set at 80.6 billion yuan at the beginning of last year, which was adjusted to 94 billion yuan in the middle of last year. A 17-percent increase definitely needs an explanation in the budget report,” said Wu.

    Wu also said last year saw a sharp increase in the budgets of permanent government institutions, such as the government administrative office and the legislature, which also needs an explanation, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

    “The budget expenditure of the permanent institutions should be comparatively stable,” said Wu.

    A member of the judicial affairs committee of the city’s legislature, Wu Limin, said the government departments have to explain their overrun budget to the public. However, some temporarily increased budgets are decided by only a meeting instead of a review by the legislature, which is against the law.

    “If the government departments can release their detailed budget reports on the Internet for public supervision, these violations can be avoided,” said Wu Limin.(Martin Li)