BEIJING, May 31 (Xinhua) -- China's State Council, or
cabinet, issued a circular Saturday to tighten management on donated quake
relief material and fund, asking the audit offices, supervision departments and
media to watch over malpractice.
It asked the audit offices and fiscal departments to
track how the government departments and non-governmental organizations handled
the donation and publicize the results regularly.
The supervision departments would inspect the
government's management on donations and severely punish the offenders while the
media are encouraged to keep a close eye on any malpractice and report their
findings, the circular said.
The police and judicial departments would crack down
upon fraud in name of collecting donations for quake relief, it added.
As of Saturday noon, China has received donations
worth of about 40.1 billion yuan (5.81 billion U.S. dollars) from domestic and
overseas donors.
How to well manage such a huge sum of money and let
it really benefit victims has been commonly talked about by the media and
ordinary Chinese citizens.
China's Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's
Procuratorate had vowed to crack down upon corruption in quake relief earlier
this month.
He Guoqiang, China's top anti-graft official of the
Communist Party of China (CPC), also warned on Wednesday of "quick, strict and
harsh penalties" on those found withholding or embezzling quake relief funds and
supplies.
The cabinet circular listed four principles for
donation management. Donation should be made voluntarily rather than
compulsorily; organizations should respect donors' will in using the donations;
donations should go to the exact needs of quake relief and rehabilitation,
especially to hard-hit areas; governments and organizations should follow a
legal and standardized way to distribute donations and publicize the results
timely.
It defined what organizations were in place to
receive donations. The civil affairs departments would receive donations in name
of the government and other departments could collect donations from their own
staff.
Public offering foundations whose duties include
disaster relief, such as Red Cross Society of China (RCSC), could raise
donations from the public. Other non-governmental organizations are required to
pass over donations they raised to the government or qualified public offering
foundations.
Any department and organization should follow the law
on donations for public welfare to set up strict management on donated fund and
material and write legal invoices for donors, according to the circular.
It also urged local governments to improve efficiency
in distributing relief fund and material and avoid misuse and waste.
The civil affairs departments were banned to include
operation cost in expenditure of donated fund and it would be covered by the
government budget. Public offering foundations were required to minimize their
operation expense and report the expenditure to the public, the circular said.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs would be in charge of
publicizing nationwide donations management reports. Local governments and
public foundations are required to give regular and detailed report on how much
they received and how to use them, it said.
Now the ministry makes daily report on the amount of
donations received and forwarded to the quake areas. The RCSC also released the
detailed list of donated fund and material on its website.
BEIJING, May 31 (Xinhua) -- An Airbus A380 carrier carrying more than 1,100 tents for people left homeless by the 8.0-magnitude earthquake, arrived in China's southwest Sichuan Province on Saturday.
The plane took off from Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris at 4p.m. on Friday (local time) and landed at Shuangliu International Airport in the provincial capital Chengdu at 8:45 a.m. on Saturday. Full story
BEIJING, May 31 (Xinhua) -- Discrimination and nepotism in the distribution of relief goods are not tolerated, China's State Council earthquake relief headquarters declared on Friday, and the legitimate rights of donors and recipients must be respected.
At a meeting to discuss the better management of relief supplies and funds for victims of the May 12 earthquake, a notice issued at the end of the session said all donations must only be used for quake relief and quake-hit regions' reconstruction. They cannot be appropriated for other purposes. Full story
