Information requests snubbed (2)

The insouciant attitude toward requests for information was in defiance of the Government Information Publicity Regulations, Professor Wang Jingbo from China University of Political Science and Law told the Legal Daily.

"According to the 24th article of the publicity regulations, the government organs have to respond to the applications within 15 days, and at most, with a 15-day extension," Wang said.

Since 2010, the central government has begun to make spending public and local governments have also followed the trend. However, the information published by some local governments have puzzled the public.

The People's Congress of Guangzhou, Guangdong Province recently published the "three public expenses" of the city's agricultural bureau in 2010 as 10.32 million yuan ($1.65 million) in total, but the bureau published the expenses on its official website on June 28 as totaling 4.88 million yuan, the Nanfang Daily reported on Wednesday.

"It might be a real mistake made by the bureau," Ye Qing told the Global Times.

However, netizens were skeptical, arguing that both figures might be false.