Giving reasons

Public interest in the expenditure exposure has been big. According to an online survey conducted by People's Daily at the end of July, 85.6 percent of the respondents indicated that they are concerned about government spending in relation to san gong, while 96.4 percent called for severe punishment of the departments that refuse to publicize related information or issue fraudulent figures.

Li noted that while publicizing the data, related departments should also explain how they spend the money. "Otherwise, people cannot make correct judgment on whether the spending is proper," he said.

The State Administration of Grain set a good example in explaining its expenditure. After it publicized its final accounts and budgets, people found that its expenditure on overseas trips in 2010 was higher than its budget. The administration explained that the increase of expenditure was due to the increase in number of international conferences and training courses the administration participated in. Meanwhile, due to the serious volcanic ash in Europe, one of the delegations of the administration had to overstay their schedule, hence the increase.

"By monitoring government departments on their spending, we do not mean to cut down expenditures of all the government departments. We just want to make sure they [government officials] are not wasting the money of us taxpayers. If they have more work, it is fair for their increased spending," said Li.

But some departments only publicized some figures without explanations. The National Population and Family Planning Commission is one example. It is under particularly heavy criticism since more than a half of this department's expenses went on overseas trips. The commission oversees the implementation of China's family planning policy, which requires most Chinese families to have only one child. Many microbloggers questioned the expense, as one of them wrote, "Do they need overseas trips? What can they learn from foreign countries about a policy that no other country seems to have?" To date the commission had made no response.

"Despite these setbacks, I am glad to see progress. At least, it opens a door for the public to supervise government spending," Ye Qing, Deputy Director of Hubei Provincial Bureau of Statistics, told ChinAfrica. "Once the door is opened, it is impossible to be shut again."

Billions involved

According to Li, expenditure on overseas trips, vehicle purchases and maintenances, and receptions is the most common source of corruption. Unlike other forms of corruption, such as bribery, which is usually conducted in secret, san gong expenditure is more obvious to the public. "You can often see luxury government vehicles on the road and officials having banquets in luxury hotels. That's why people want to know whether government spending is reasonable," said Li.

But, how serious is san gong spending in China? According to an article written by Zhu Lijia, a professor of Chinese Academy of Governance, the expenditures on overseas trips, vehicle purchases and maintenances, and receptions of government departments of various levels totaled 900 billion yuan ($141.3 billion) every year, though the Ministry of Finance denied this figure.

However, Zhu said, "Given this large amount of [government] expenditure, supervision is very important." 

Setting an example

"To be honest, so far, I am quite satisfied with the spending disclosure of central government departments since what they did can influence local governments, pressing them to follow suit," said Li.

According to Li, the expenditures of central government departments account for only a very small part of the 900 billion yuan of expenditures nationwide every year for the spending in the three aspects. The local governments, which are in the bottom of the pyramid-shape government structure, consume the lion's share.

In fact, central government departments' publicizing spending is playing an exemplary role on local governments. After some central government departments publicized their spending, Beijing is the first provincial government to follow suit.  On the morning of July 21, Beijing Municipal Government submitted its bill of expenditures on overseas trips, vehicle purchases and maintenances, and receptions to the Standing Committee of the Municipal People's Congress, announcing that the total spending on the three aspects in 2010 was 1.13 billion yuan ($177.4 million).

After Beijing, provinces such as Jiangxi, Shandong and Guangdong are preparing their figures. According to the document released by Jiangxi Provincial Government, the province will publicize its official business expenditures and administrative spending by the end of this year.

"Expenditures of local government departments are closely related to common people's interest, and I believe when the practice of exposure of government spending is institutionalized nationwide, this will greatly restrain corruption and extravagance of the government," said Li.