80% of 2008 Sichuan quake donations went to government: report
Staff Reporter 2013-08-02 15:37
A man donated money to earthquake relief in Gansu province. (Photo/Xinhua)
A total of 76 billion yuan (US$12.4 billion) was donated by the public for relief efforts following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, 80% of which has ended up in government coffers, according to a team led by a professor from Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The government of Yunnan province in China's southwest announced at a seminar held on July 18 that it will withdraw from its role as a charity fundraiser, unless any major disaster occurs.
Some have viewed the announcement positively, saying Yunnan's decision indicates that the local government no longer has the administrative rights to raise money. Some scholars, however, said that this change of mindset still has a long way to go.
Xu Yongguang, director-general of the Narada Foundation, said at the seminar that the government should see people as individuals that have the ability to manage themselves, instead of seeing them as animals. He added that as the government represents status and power, fundraising initiated by government authorities usually generates more money.
According to the Hebei-based Yanzhao Metropolis Daily, some experts from Beijing took the view that governments should quit the fundraising market and that donations collected by private organizations should not be distributed by the government, which would ensure fair competition between NGOs.
He Daofeng, vice president of the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, said that if local governments do not withdraw and constantly accept donations from business tycoons, public servants or private companies, civil charities would have no space to grow.
In Yunnan, donations raised by the Red Cross Society of China or other charities usually find their way into the government's budget for fixing roads, said Yang Wucheng, an official at the provincial department of civil affairs. This hurts the government's credibility and public image, Yang said.
Yang Tuan of the China Charity Federation (CCF) also criticized some local charities for acting as the government's personal bank. She said that when the CCF was established in 1994, then civil affairs minister Cui Naifu had said the federation should be separate from the government. Cui had stressed that donations were not the government's money but belonged to society, she added.
