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Taipei dodges tsunami-aid charges

Mere days after allegations of delaying tsunami payouts clouded the Government Information Office (GIO), the Taipei City Government yesterday came under fire for the same matter. The Taipei City Social Welfare Department denied leaving tsunami donations undistributed and said that the money will be used to improve education in Aceh, Indonesia.

"As a local government, we were in a position to support the central government's fundraising campaign," the director of the department, Hsueh Cheng-tai (薛承泰), said yesterday.

"Since we did not hold any fundraising events and received little in lieu of donations, our strategy is to use the money for reconstruction work, such as providing children with educational resources," he said.

Hsueh's remarks came after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Lee Wen-yin (李文英) accused the city government of failing to distribute a total of NT$37 million in donations remitted to the department's account.

Dismissing the accusations, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said that the city government has already started to review and discuss plans to allocate the money.

"We sent a medical team to the area immediately after the tsunami and the local people said that they had already received a lot of international donations. So we figured we should use our donations for future reconstruction work," he said.

Records published by the department later yesterday showed that donations from civil groups, individuals and city government staff amounted to just over NT$1 million in the first month after the disaster. The total reached NT$37 million last month.

Hsueh said that unlike the total raised during the GIO's fundraising campaign, which reached NT$395 million within a short time, donations sent to the city government came in slowly over several months.

Ma okayed the department's proposal to have the city's disaster-donation management committee review the distribution plans in June. As some civil groups presented proposals -- including establishing digital classrooms for children in Aceh, Indonesia, and assisting students in Sumatra to continue their education in Taiwan -- the committee will hold a meeting to discuss these next month, according to the department.

Lee dismissed these arguments and said that it was the city government's laziness and inefficiency that led to the delay in payouts.

"The donation management committee was established in 2002. The city government gave the committee the right to process the disaster donations promptly. It's ridiculous that the committee hasn't held one single meeting so far to discuss ways to distribute the money," she said.

Hsueh said that the money was meant for future reconstruction efforts in the disaster-stricken area, instead of immediate help. He promised that the management committee would look into the proposals carefully to ensure that every dollar was spent wisely and encouraged civil groups to present more proposals to the city government before the meeting.
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