The Commission has carried out a special regularity audit of the Tourism Fund, and the audit scope includes control of implementation of budget, statutory compliance, financial management and internal control of the Fund. Main findings are as follows:

1. Implementation of budget does not comply with paragraph 1of article 10 of Law no. 7/2000: “The amount granted from each allocated fund shall not be used in any financial budget item which is considered as not corresponding.” Approximately MOP 2.6 million of budgeted allocated fund of the Tourism Fund are used to pay for administrative expenses and personnel costs of the Macao Government Tourist Office. Supervision over implementation procedures of budgeted expenditure is not sufficient and there is no effective management system for expenditure operation.

2. Supervision over overseas offices is not sufficient. As a result, the actual expenditure for promotional activities has exceeded the approved budget limit. In year 2001, the estimated fund for promotional activities for the 8 overseas offices was approximately MOP 1.42 million more than the approved budget. Total excess expenditure of the 5 overseas offices for Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Germany, U.K., U.S. and Canada is approximately MOP 560,000. Nearly MOP 330,000 expenditure used for promotions has no receipts to trace back to. The double payments amounted to no less than MOP 150,000.

3. Financial assistance has been granted beyond the grantors’ own scope of statutory functions. Moreover, the assistance has been granted under different expenditure names, resulting the total amount of assistance cannot be reflected clearly and completely.