Wu Guangqiang

    jw368@163.com

    CHINA has lifted more than 700 million of its citizens out of poverty, an unprecedented feat in human history, since 1978, when it began to reform and open itself up to the rest of the world.

    Not content with this tremendous achievement, China has not ceased its poverty-reduction efforts; a five-year plan released last year sets a new goal: to lift another 70 million people, 1 percent of global population, out of poverty by 2020.

    China is the only developing country to have met the U.N. Millennium Development Goals poverty-reduction target so far, which, starting from 2000, aimed at reducing by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and reducing by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by the end of 2015.

    China has no reason to be complacent, as it still has 70.17 million people in rural areas living below the country’s poverty line of 2,300 yuan (US$376) in annual income.

    That’s why the top Chinese leadership has repeatedly reiterated its determination and commitment to doing more to completely eradicate poverty in China by the end of 2020.

    The diminishing number of poor people is a mixed blessing, though, as the remaining poor population is the hardest nut to crack. These people mostly live in barely accessible places: deep mountains and out-of-the-way villages. They generally lack means of sustainable living and development due to their insufficient education, skills and information about the outside world.

    To address this special challenge, China is conducting a precision poverty-relief program, with precise positioning of the advantaged groups and different systems for different areas.

    The world’s biggest poverty-alleviation endeavor requires huge funds. It’s estimated that at least 100 billion yuan will be allocated by the Central Government for poverty relief each year from 2015 to 2020.

    And the total sum has been on the rise. The figure rose from 27.2 billion yuan in 2011 to 43.3 billion yuan in 2014, an annual increase of 18 percent. The allocation for 2015 was 45.7 billion yuan and 2016 will see an additional 20 billion yuan, a 43.4 percent year-on-year increase.

    In addition to the Central Government’s funding, there will also be provincial and municipal funding.

    The proper use and oversight of the funds are of critical importance. In fact, there have been some disturbing reports about embezzlement and misuse of the poverty-relief funds.

    According to Cao Jianming, the country’s top prosecutor, the number of corrupt officials who have misused and embezzled poverty-relief funds has sharply risen due to “loopholes in supervision.”

    On June 29, China’s chief auditor Liu Jiayi delivered an audit report on the 2015 annual central budge implementation and financial expenditure to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, which found that 151 million yuan of the poverty-relief funds were misused or embezzled by fraudulent applications or claims and another 870 million yuan was left idle or wasted in 40 counties of 17 provinces.

    Misuses came in all conceivable forms. A deputy county chief in Henan Province built a holiday resort with the embezzled money. Two village cadres in a poverty-stricken village in Chongqing embezzled 930,000 yuan by cooking the books affixed with a fake corporate seal carved out of a radish.

    A common way of embezzling the poverty-relief funds was by false claims. An audit report found that in Mashan, one of the key counties under the national poverty-alleviation plan, 3,119 people who received poverty-relief subsidies were not poor at all, of whom 343 were government employees. Of these cheaters, 2,454 purchased 2,645 cars, 43 bought apartments in the downtown area or built houses of their own, and 439 ran their own businesses.

    The alarming cases of fraud raises a number of questions: who is supervising the use of these funds and how? Have any swindlers been punished and how?

    President Xi Jinping has offered solutions to the problem: precise and scientific poverty relief, namely every penny must be accounted for. There will be no cracks in the system and all money allocated and spent must be verified.

    (The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.)