Nearly ten billion yuan worth of social housing funds are found to be illegally embezzled by around 200 different organizations. [Photo: zhuzhouwang.com]

China's top auditing authority has found nearly 10 billion yuan worth of social housing funds have been embezzled.

The National Audit Office says around 200 different organizations illegally used the cash to either make new loans, repay debts, make investments or use the money to pay their bills.

Yu Lin with the National Audit Office says around 4-billion yuan has since been recovered.

"Our work over the past few years to try to strengthen our auditing has helped government agencies improve the management of affordable housing. This has helped eliminate some of the chronic problems we've seen in this sector."

The Chinese government spent 560-billion yuan on affordable housing last year.