China bank staffs bought shoes with donations
Written by ED on June 14, 2008 – 7:13 am - Posted in Current Affairs, World |Didn’t I just said, be smart and not blind? Now, employees of China biggest bank were caught buying 56 pairs of Nike shoes using donated funds meant for earthquake victims after an audit. Yesterday, it was a rumour. Today, it’s a fact. Receipts were faked and apparently, a few other fund-raising accounts have been frozen too. I will leave you to read the report yourself.
We are always quick to show how generous we are in times of needs, and we blindly step into donation drives without further scrutinizing the organizations that solicits for donations. In a way, some of us are afraid of being labelled as lacking in compassion or empathy. But looking at all these corruptions, perhaps we should be happy to be “lacking” in these.
I know it’s tough to check if a certain organization is transparent enough, especially when we are talking about the biggest bank in China. The immediate perception we have is, since it’s the biggest bank then the risk should be relatively lower. Can’t the biggest bank in China even afford 56 pairs of shoes? I believe these are acts of individuals (who are senior enough in that branch) and not endorsed by the bank. The bank head management probably didn’t even know about it until the audits were done.
Nearly 70,000 killed, almost 17,500 missing still (as reported in there), and to think there are people still in the mood of shopping for shoes. What’s worse, with humanitarian funds.
Perhaps it would be better to have a centralized organization to disperse the funds accordingly, instead of each organization putting up their own donation drives. That central organization will be solely held responsible for how such funds are used. It will make things a lot easier for generous donors to track as well, with full disclosure like most charitable organizations. That’s meaning this central organization should be well versed with ALL aspects of disaster management, from search & rescue to even reconstruction.
Pretty much like a United Nations, but dedicated specially to disasters to cut down on such evil deeds.
Who suffers at the end of the day? Not the bank, not the employees, not the donors… but the victims of the earthquake.
June 14th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Oh my. However, I don’t think it’s the 1st time such atrocities are being made known. It seems that even with the impeding Olympics, China is being known for other things than the Olympics at this moment.
June 14th, 2008 at 11:24 am
China’s a lot like many African nations in that way, and Myanmar too :S but at least with the Olympics looming I think the authorities are more likely to clamp down before they lose anymore “face”.
June 15th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Haiz… I guess a lot of other places are having the same problem. I guess transparency especially for donations and financial institution is very important.