BEIJING - AN annual audit showed 10 of China's central government departments misused or embezzled 4.52 billion yuan (S$935 million) last year, the country's top auditor said.

Auditor-General Liu Jiayi said in his annual report to the National People's Congress that 117 cases of official embezzlement were uncovered in 2007, and 14 top officials were detained.

History of misused funds 2006 Audits found 7 billion yuan (US$1.02 billion) in misused funds, though more than half of the funding was retrieved later, the report released by the National Audit Office said. 2005 Misused funds amounted to 5.51 billion yuan (US$805.73 million).

A total of 88 people were arrested, prosecuted or sentenced, and another 104 people were given administrative punishments for the violations, the official China Daily reported Thursday.

Corruption has been a serious challenge to the Chinese Communist Party, threatening the country's social and political stability.

China's leadership has attempted to rein it in through periodic anti-corruption crackdowns, though it has failed to take a systematic approach.

The 10 agencies include the education and commerce ministries, the National Bureau of Statistics, State Administration of Taxation, and the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television.

After auditing the 2007 state budget spending, expenditures of 29.38 billion yuan (US$4.32 billion) were found to be 'problematic' at the ministerial level, Mr Liu said, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

The problems included falsifying budget accounts, fund appropriation and embezzlement, underreporting revenues and over-reporting expenditures.

The National Audit Office also found 258 million yuan (US$3.7 million) in disaster relief funds were embezzled and used to build government buildings or for administrative expenditures, Xinhua said.

The office also noted 'managerial irregularities' in the handling of 41.7 billion yuan (US$6.09 billion) of government funds, China Daily said.

Audits in 2006 found 7 billion yuan (US$1.02 billion) in misused funds, though more than half of the funding was retrieved later, the paper said. In 2005, misused funds amounted to 5.51 billion yuan (US$805.73 million).

Investigations into land use fees in 11 major cities, including Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai last year showed 8.4 billion yuan (US$1.22 billion) had been misused.

Auditors in 133 cities found that 2 billion yuan (US$292.4 million) was misappropriated from housing funds and another 2.2 billion yuan (US$321.7 million) had been loaned out improperly.

An audit of nine major financial institutions, including the Agricultural Bank of China, showed 14.2 billion yuan (US$2.07 billion) was used illegally, the report said, and 140 suspects from those institutions were turned over to judicial departments.

Last December, a website started by China's new anti-corruption bureau crashed after barely a day because too many visitors tried to log on to register complaints.

Nearly 2,000 local government officials were either disciplined or charged with crimes last year, Xinhua reported in late December, citing the Communist Party's organization department. -- AP