China's top legislature will review a draft revision to the Budget Law in
August, which aims to improve the budgetary work and make government budgets
more transparent to the public, a legislator said on Wednesday. Revising the Budget Law is an important part of the legislative work of the
11th national People's Congress (NPC), said Gao Qiang, vice chairman of the NPC
Financial and Economic Affairs Committee and director of the NPC Standing
Committee's Budgetary Affairs Commission, on the sidelines of the annual
parliament session. Gao said the revision will ensure that "budgets are more complete" and will
clearly state that "all the government's revenue and expenditures should be
included in budget." It was common in the past few years that local governments recorded much more
revenue than as budgeted, and the surplus was not supervised by people's
congresses, said Gao. The Budget Law took effect in March 1994 and the revision work has lasted two
years. Gao said the revision also states punishments for those breaching the budget
law. Gao said "all budgets submitted to the legislature must be made public on
government websites.
Source: Xinhua |