As of April 19, more than 80 departments under the Central Government had also posted their 2012 budget execution and 2013 budgets for the "three public expenses" online. Most of the departments projected less spending, citing the central authority's call for thrift.

For example, the National Development and Reform Commission set its 2013 "three public expenses" budget at 39.44 million yuan ($6 million), 3.84 million yuan ($623,000) less than the previous year's amount. The Ministry of Science and Technology cut its 2013 budget by 1 million yuan ($162,000) from its 2012 budget.

Departments that unveiled rising budgets clarified the reasons on their websites.

The National Health and Family Planning Commission and other departments that are being restructured will not be included in this round's disclosure, the MOF said. They will only release their budget sheets after the reshuffle is finished.

This is the fourth year that Central Government departments and publicly funded authorities have published their budgets since the introduction of rules on disclosing government spending in 2008. This year, the release of budgetary data concerning the "three public expenses" came several months earlier than in previous years.

However, while agreeing that the decrease in the "three public expenses" was a positive sign, Ye said that the release of the figures is still not transparent enough due to inadequate itemization of individual expenditures.

"We haven't been told the number of government vehicles or groups on overseas trips, nor the expenditure of each group," Ye said. "Clearly, the spending is going down, but we still don't know whether the current expenditures are reasonable."

Many people have also gone online to express dissatisfaction with the reports, saying that they lack an adequate amount of detail.

For example, the National Development and Reform Commission spent 4 million yuan ($649,000) more than it budgeted for the "three public expenses" last year.

The commission explained that the extra expenditures were for overseas trips related to extra assignments given by the State Council, China's cabinet.

Zhu Lijia, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said that the overspending shows that the budgets were not strictly implemented.

"Without a detailed explanation for the overspending, the Budget Law will lose its power," Zhu said.

Experts said that there is significant room for improvement in compiling budgets, as specific items are rarely listed in line with current rules. For example, only the total number of official vehicles is revealed, while new auto purchases are not detailed.

Without the possibility of exercising oversight down to the level of individuals who use official vehicles, merely revealing the combined total tells nothing, critics said.

Some critics also argued that actual government spending on the "three public expenses" could be greater than disclosed, as many government departments and public institutions reimburse a large part of such expenditures, using funds collected from revenue sources outside of fiscal appropriation.

Authorities have failed to update annual official data regarding the total amount spent on official receptions, overseas trips and vehicles since 2004, when officials stated that 120.1 billion yuan ($19 billion) was spent on the items.

In 2006, Wang Xixin, a professor at Peking University, estimated the total expenses on the three items to be around 900 billion yuan ($146 billion), a claim that was denied in an article on People's Daily on April 19.

According to the People's Daily article, the estimates are not based on concrete evidence. It did not offer its own figures for the spending.

"The point of the matter is not about raising or reducing the 'three public expenses'," blogged user Laoyu Kaibo on Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. "What really matters is whether taxpayers' money is used properly, legally and transparently."

Email us at: yinpumin@bjreview.com