China's audit authority -- which has achieved popular acclaim for its exposure of corruption, malpractice and misspent public funds -- is opening itself to scrutiny by other government departments to fight graft in its own ranks.

A joint team of officials from government agencies of finance and supervision is scheduled to start annual inspections of auditing departments.

The plan was announced by Liu Jiayi, deputy auditor-general of the National Audit Office (NAO), at an inner meeting on "enhancing the construction of the audit institutions."

Financial income and expenditure, the use of special funds and work performance of audit departments will be subject to the external inspections.

The NAO has published audit reports on government departments over the past three years, accusing some of them of malpractice such as misappropriation of funds.

But the audit offices themselves receive no outside scrutiny as local offices are only under the supervision of their superiors. The NAO received 440 complaints on "discipline violation" of audit offices and officials from January 2005 to August this year.

(Xinhua News Agency October 13, 2006)