Three months later, a requirement by a lawmaker made Guangzhou Asiad a buzzword again.
"How much money was spent for the Asiad? Is the provincial government in debt? If so, where shall we get money to improve people's livelihoods?" asked Zhong Nanshan, a renowned medical expert and a member of the National People's Congress, on Tuesday.
Zhang Jieming, head of the financial bureau of Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, gave the answer.
"The total budget by the municipal government was 120 billion yuan, among which the largest amount, 10.9 billion, was used for infrastructure improvement, including subway, road and bridge construction," he said.
Zhang added that apart from the money, the central government and provincial government gave Guangzhou financial aid. "In general, we may not earn much, but we are not in debt either."
Whether the explanation was satisfactory or not, one thing is for sure: more and more attention was paid to the purse of government.
At the annual session of the People's Congress of Guangzhou city, 505 lawmakers deliberated over the 42.5-billion-yuan draft budget of the government.
The report covered 108 government units, which was as thick as 800 pages. The Congress members asked questions while officials replied to specific questions about use of the money.
"The budget is the digitized governmental guideline," said Liu Shangxi, an official with the scientific research office of the Finance Ministry. "If the government doesn't disclose its budget to the public, ordinary people will not be able to know what the government is doing and whether its work is necessary and helpful."
He believes there has been considerable progress since ordinary people are paying more and more attention to the government budget.
At this year's session of the People's Congress at Xinhe township, Wenling city of east China's Zhejiang Province, representatives offered 56 suggestions and three motions. This is the first time local representative of the people's congress proposed to amend the budget draft, which involved the use of 155.3 million yuan.
In fact, as early as in 2008, volunteers in Shenzhen of Guangdong Province had required local government and state ministries to be transparent in the presentation of their budgets. In the same year, they won the approval to read and record the budget of Shenzhen government. It was the first time government opened its account books to ordinary citizens.
In January 2010, the government of Baimiao village in southwest China's Sichuan Province had been dubbed a "naked government" after it listed all the items of expenditures online, even including the cost of a business dinner. Some people questioned whether the money used for a reception of visiting officials was too much, and suggested more funds go towards improvement of village roads, power supply networks and drinking water quality.
Also, last May the construction-planning bureau of Wenling specified its budget on the Wenling Daily, which took an entire page. The next day, a local resident called the bureau to ask why, after summing up all items, the resident's sum was different from the total.
"Sunlight is the best anticorrosive," said Li Chengyan, a professor with the School of Government in the Beijing University. "Bringing the 'account book' to light is the premise of public supervision, which is a good way to reduce corruption."
Liu Shangxi noted that publicizing the government budget could help officials adjust their policies. "After knowing the use of each sum of money, people can give advice about the money spent and where it is needed and this really helped to improve people's livelihood."
While Shi Jinchuan, a professor with the Zhejiang University, believes that publicizing budgets among the general public is a leap in China's democratic reform.
"By doing so, local government gave its power of making big decisions to the public, so as to improve the quality of government policies," he said.
However, China is just at the starting point of bringing its budgets before the public.
According to Li Detao, a volunteer who has endeavored to push governments to disclose their budgets, only 21 out of the 114 government units in Guangzhou city opened their account books to the public.
Also, even if the account books were open, not everyone could understand the figures.
Ye Qing, deputy head of the statistics bureau of central China's Hubei Province, said that despite his expertise, he couldn't fully understand the national budget report in last year's annual national parliamentary and advisory sessions.
"During the 'two sessions,' few people talked about the report," he said.
Also, some officials said it is not necessary for everybody to understand the report.
"Just like the theory of relativity couldn't be understood by everyone, not all the people could understand the budget report," said Wang Wentong, head of the financial department of the Hubei provincial government.
While acknowledging the problems, Liu Shangxi with the Finance Ministry said it is a trend for governments to open their account books.
"The reform couldn't be accomplished overnight and the process of reviewing budgets needs to be improved," he said.
"In the future, the items will be more specific and understandable," he said.
(One yuan equals 0.1521 U.S. dollars.)
