Chinese National Audit Office has surprisingly released an audit of the country’s lottery financial performance in October. According to it, lottery sales grew by 20.3% to RMB32.7 billion (US$5.3 billion).
As it turns out, the financial inspection carried out and posted by the National Audit Office resulted from investigations that had pointed to “accounting irregularities” at lottery organizations within the territory of mainland China. Reportedly, 18 special teams had been assigned the important task to investigate each of the country’s provinces for any financial inconsistencies. No local auditors had been permitted to take part in the proceedings. What is more, it appears that the conducted inspections had not been among the scheduled checks that auditors perform annually.
As mentioned above, lottery sales scored a considerable rise back in October. Welfare lottery sales, in particular, increased 14.5% to RMB17.75 billion. As for sports lottery sales, they marked a 27.9% rise, adding up to RMB14.95 billion.
According to the financial report, sales increased in all provinces within the territory of China, except for Beijing, where a 20.9% drop was posted and a total of RMB730.3 million was generated. This was mainly contributed to the major decrease in sports lottery sales. Back in October, they dropped by 51.2%, amounting to RMB235.2 million, as compared to last year’s numbers. As for welfare lottery sales, they grew by 12.4% in October.
A total of RMB312.1 billion was generated from sales for the first ten months of 2014. In other words, a 24% increase was scored, as compared to last year’s RMB309 billion, earned over the same period.
Welfare lottery sales totaled RMB168.2 billion for the first ten months of this year, scoring a 17.2% increase. As for sports lottery sales, they posted a more significant growth by 33.2%, totaling RMB143.9 billion.
As it was already mentioned, the National Audit Office’s inspections and the released financial statement came absolutely out of the blue. They were most probably occasioned by the increasing evidence that lottery earnings were misappropriated around the country.
Income from sports lottery is expected to be used for the benefit of Chinese population – the construction of modern sports facilities, for instance. Yet, Shandong authorities were reported to had spent more than RMB34 million for the renovation of administration buildings and the acquisition of new cars.
What is more, ten cities in the Shandong province failed to transfer a total of RMB214 million in lottery income to the relevant accounts. In addition, eight cities misappropriated a total of RMB102 million.
The surprising inspection that the National Audit Office carried out (and the financial report that was released afterwards) was yet another measure that Chinese authorities took in regard to the corruption scandal that sparked in the country not long ago.
