China's chief auditor has pledged to keep publicizing audit results from government departments, particularly those of the central government, in a continuous push to regulate and enhance transparency of government spending.

"Fiscal revenue comes mainly from taxpayers. There should be an explanation to the taxpayers of how the money is spent," said Li Jinhua, Auditor General of the National Audit Office (NAO), at a meeting of fiscal chiefs of central government departments.

"The only way to explain this is to publish audit results, except information involving state secrets," said Li, who has become a national icon for starting a crusade against irregularities in government spending, a keen concern of the public.

The NAO has identified 14.6 billion yuan (1.85 billion U.S. dollars) of funds misused by central government departments over the last two years.

The irregularities included:

-- the National Development and Reform Commission using public money to build houses for its staff;

-- the Ministry of Education investing in unlicensed projects;

-- and the Ministry of Civil Affairs failing to put 18.09 million yuan of proceeds from a land sale on its books.

Li said in many countries, details of national budgets were available in bookstores. They showed how much money was allocated to every department and for what purposes.

He said the office would again name central government departments with fiscal transgressions in a report to a national legislature session next year.

This appeared to quash speculation that the office will stop mentioning names for fear of offending too many people.

The office had focused on irregularities in central government department budgets because of their exemplary role, said Li.

"If they fail to act according to law, how can they demand local authorities abide by the law," said Li.

The practice of announcing the irregularities, known as an "audit storm", has proved effective in promoting image-conscious government departments to mend their ways.

However, Li said government departments would be given more than a month to conduct self-examinations before this year's audit.

"If they find and correct problems themselves, we will not write them down in our audit reports," said Li.

The ultimate purpose of the audit was to "solve problems", he said, adding the auditors hoped to identify fewer problems because the audit was so costly. Better internal management and legal propriety would save auditors a lot of trouble.

Li said the "audit storm" of the recent years had born results. The overall budget management of central government departments had been improving each year.

"It's possible that after a few more years, central government departments will be disentangled from major irregularities in general," he said.