China's National Audit Office (NAO) said Monday that during the first 11 months 863 cases and clues involving 1,068 people had been handed over to the judicial authorities on charges of money laundering, insider trading and providing false receipts.

The audit, conducted by auditing agencies across the nation, covered 99,000 companies, government bodies, public institutions, and retrieved losses of 16.3 billion yuan, said Liu Jiayi, China's top auditor at the national auditing conference.

The audit was also carried out among more than 20,000 government officials including provincial-level cadres and bosses of large state-owned enterprises.

Cases involving 67 senior officials and 164 others were handed over to judicial authorities.

"We should enhance officials' awareness of law and set up clear accountability system at all government levels," Liu said.

The NAO has sent working groups to 55 central departments for audit inspection.

Despite some improvement, embezzlement, waste of money and false fiscal reporting still existed in central departments, Liu said.

(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2009)