According to Sun Dan, an official with Anxian's drug administration, the county has set up an independent institution for medicine management and distribution. Medicine here is offered to the county hospital, township health centers, the army stationed in Anxian and medical teams from other provinces. There is a database on the names of who transport the medicine and copies of bills of lading. The database is updated daily.

Chaping Township

In Chaping Township, local officials keep records of all relief supplies and their usage. The records are submitted to the county government on a daily basis.

According to a donor who brought relief supplies to Chaping Township by himself, in the first days of the earthquake, there was no standard procedure for donation receiving, but soon local officials began to issue invoices bearing the township government's official seal. The donor expressed his concern that the relief supplies would not reach the affected people in time, but as it was impossible for him to deliver them by himself, he decided to use the network of the township government.

Jiangyou City

As far as Jiangyou City is concerned, the biggest challenge is to deliver the relief supplies to remote mountainous areas, which are almost inaccessible because of the high mountains and roads blocked by mudslides. As a result, the delivery and distribution of relief supplies largely depend on the army.

Over 2,000 troops and officials are involved in the relief and rescue work in Jiangyou. After they carry supplies to remote villages, village heads will give the relief team leader a receipt with detailed information on the relief supplies, such as the amount and variety of the supplies.

(Source: Beijing Youth Daily)

Relief Aid Carefully Audited

In a recent interview with the national TV broadcaster CCTV, Wang Zhongxin, Director of the Social Security Audit Department at the National Audit Office, talks about the procedures that are in effect to ensure relief supplies for the Wenchuan earthquake victims reach the end users. Excerpts of the interview follow:

CCTV: At the present stage, relief supplies are pouring into the quake zone. Does the audit supervision focus on only selected localities or does it cover the entire quake zone?

Wang: Generally speaking, almost all quake-hit areas have been covered by the audit supervision, with the National Audit Office and Sichuan Provincial Audit Office focusing on several key areas.

The audit departments get involved in the relief efforts at the very beginning, so as to ensure that all relief materials, including donations from society and financial supports from governments at various levels, would reach quake victims in a timely manner.

Would you please explain how the audit work is carried out by giving us a specific example?

I visited Shifang City in Sichuan Province on May 24, where the audit supervision follows the whole process of receiving, distributing and storing relief supplies. Auditors keep accounts of every single part of the process. The detailed registration and account of relief supplies help the delivery work go smoothly.

Among the three links of relief delivery of receiving, transporting and distributing, which draws your most attention?

Our major task is to help relief delivers set up regulations on the operation procedure and then to ensure the implementation of these regulations. At the same time, we also try to find out whether the distribution procedure is reasonable and lawful and to make sure that the relief supplies can really reach disaster areas and the affected people.

Have you found any loopholes in the relief delivery in the past few days?

At present, the transportation of most of the relief materials is well organized. At the beginning, however, the management system was not so effective because some regulations were not yet in place, but the work is going quite well now.