Having served as a guardian angel for consumers for 25 years, the non-profit Consumers' Foundation (
"Now the foundation has a working fund of only NT$760,000 (US$23,800), which is just enough to pay employees' salaries next Friday," Jason Lee (李鳳翱), the foundation's chairman, said during a phone interview yesterday.
"This is an unprecedented crisis. We hope the public can make donations or subscribe to our magazines to show support and encouragement," he said.
With 27 paid workers and several examination projects being carried out each month, the foundation has weathered a monthly capital gap of NT$300,000 for six or seven years.
Its huge group of volunteers, numbering between 400 and 500 around the nation, is the key factor to supporting the organization in its ongoing battles with ill-natured businesses.
"Many people think we are a government agency. But the foundation is a non-governmental organization, which mainly relies on public and corporate donations to fund its operations," he said.
However, due to an economic downturn and its persistent efforts to safeguard consumers' interests, which perhaps have incurred hostility from businesses, donations received nose-dived to a combined NT$100,000 in April and May, as opposed to its monthly expenditures of NT$1.2 million on personnel, examinations and utility fees.
The foundation once obtained a record-breaking donation of NT$10 million from a local bank, Lee said.
"We are not confronting businesses. In fact, our efforts to ferret out questionable products are an effective way to protect quality corporations," he said.
Dwindling subscriptions to its magazine Consumer Reports of Taiwan also dented its financial health, Lee said.
With the number of subscribers declining from a peak of 30,000 a few years ago to the current 11,000, the foundation is losing NT$20 million per year.
In addition, it stopped charging fees on written complaints this year, a policy aimed at serving more consumers but expected to lose NT$800,000 annually.
The foundation receives an average of 4,000 written complaints and 50,000 phone calls to make complaints or consult with volunteer lawyers every year. It holds press conferences every week to unveil examination results or call on the public not to consume unsafe foodstuffs, like US beef.
"I hope the public can treat and take care of us like a winged steed, so that we can continue to serve and protect consumers," Lee said.
This is not the first time that the foundation faces a "life or death" juncture. In 1994, when lawyer Lin Shih-hua (林世華) served as the foundation chairman, he had to reach into his own pocket on occasion to pay employees' salaries.
"Every penny must be used correctly. Increasing income and decreasing expenditure is the best way to help the non-profit organization weather the crisis," said foundation vice chairman Cheng Jen-hung (
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
RSS