Five municipal legislators in Guangzhou have jointly blamed local authorities for excessive spending during last year's Asian Games, pointing to the enormous debt left in their wake.

Zhong Nanshan, a Guangzhou Municipal People's Congress deputy, who gained a reputation as a leading respiratory scientist amid China's fight against the SARS epidemic in 2003, said, "The local government is now in a 210-billion-yuan (US$31.34 billion) hole" from the Games, the Guangzhou Daily reported Wednesday.

If that number proves accurate, it is almost three times higher than the municipal fiscal revenue of 2009, official data indicates.

"The total investment for the Asian Games was 257.7 billion yuan (US$38.4 billion), of which 195 billion yuan came from the government," Zhong was quoted as saying, without attributing any sources for his figures.

He could not be reached Wednesday.

Zhong went on to say the government needs to do more to raise citizens' income and to curb inflation.

"GDP growth is not so important. What matters more is to do practical things for the people, which should be a major index in judging a government's performance," he said.

To offset some of the money spent on training volunteers and on throwing a reception for foreign guests during the Games, a 38-million-yuan budget proposal was submitted to the local municipal legislature this year, according to a Southern Weekend report Wednesday.

Prior to the event in November, Guangzhou Mayor Wan Qingliang announced that the gross investment for the Games had reached 120 billion yuan, including 109 billion yuan to improve infrastructure and environmental conditions.

Huang Jianwu, one of the legislators, said Monday during a session of the municipal legislature that the local government had upped the budget but had hardly solicited public opinion.

Luo Jingjun, deputy director of the city's publicity department, defended the spending, arguing that "Guangzhou wouldn't have gained such an international reputation without holding the Asian Games."

The government's publicity department declined to comment when contacted Wednesday.

Jeff Ruffolo, an executive adviser for the Games, also said the money spent was justified.

"They would have spent that much of money over a longer period of time, and less would have been done that the general public could take advantage of," Ruffolo told the Global Times.

The Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences projected in October that the Games would bring the city a GDP growth of 800 billion yuan in the long run, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

Huang Huahua, governor of Guangdong Province, told Nanfang Daily shortly after the Asian Games that they had left a legacy to the people.

"The Games significantly improved the landscape, image and function of the city. It's projected that the Games sped up Guangzhou's construction by 10 years," Huang said.

Ma Xiaonan, a 26-year-old man in Guangzhou, said the event did accelerate the building of the city and significantly change its outlook, but "the lavish spending doesn't have much of a direct benefit for the general public, given soaring prices and unaffordable housing."

Zhang Yixuan, an IT engineer in Guangzhou, said that in addition to the traffic, social order, especially in rural areas, is in urgently need of improvement, noting that thefts and robberies are common at night in the city's outskirts.

Wang Yukai, a professor of public management at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said the reported over-spending may mirror the mentality of some local officials who favor personal political legacies over the impact of overspending for large-scale events.