Keep the job clean

Judging from the first report the National Audit Office has published, the use of disaster relief funds and materials in the wake of the Wenchuan earthquake does not appear to have been as bad as some had feared.

There indeed are loopholes to plug. The three cases of abuse, though small in both the quantity involved and impacts on the bigger picture, underscore the importance of stricter monitoring.

In a sense, the case in which local officials tried to seek personal gains in the purchase of disaster relief materials, and the one where bank officials bought Nike sneakers for their staff in the name of "disaster relief materials" expose the usual ways of such people that we are familiar with at other times.