Fraud uncovered in Chinese projects with foreign loans

Beijing, June 19 (IANS) China has uncovered fraud worth 237 million yuan (around $37 million) in projects that used loans from foreign organisations, including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and the UN Development Programme.

Auditors uncovered fund misappropriation in six projects, the China Daily reported citing the National Audit Office.

The fraud was detected in an audit conducted last year on 99 government projects that received loans from international organisations.

The projects included agriculture, energy, transportation and urban construction. The World Bank sponsors 46 of them.

By the end of 2010, the projects had taken foreign capital worth 34.5 billion yuan, while the total planned investment for these 99 projects was more than 424 billion yuan.

The National Audit Office said three kinds of problems were found in the projects with foreign funds and assistance -- capital misappropriation, poor supervision and management, and substandard accounting.