Rumblings are still being felt in the aftermath of the Feb. 6 Hualien earthquake. However, the latest tremors are political, not geological, and involve contentious decisions by the Hualien County Government and the committee responsible for distributing public donations to the relief effort.
Donors and online commentators have been angered by revelations this week that a significant proportion of donations — 40 percent — to help victims of the earthquake have instead been earmarked for commercial and industrial companies.
Of the NT$2 billion (US$68.5 million) in donations, NT$800 million is to go to companies effected by the earthquake, with half going to tourism firms and the other half going to quarry companies.
Some large donors, unhappy with how the money is to be allocated, have asked for their donation to be returned, a decision largely approved by online commentators.
The allocation is not illegal, although many people — including fitness studio owner Holger Chen (陳之漢) who asked for his NT$1 million to be returned, saying: “Our donation was for the disaster victims, it was not intended for this purpose” — clearly believe the spending is contrary to the reasonable use of disaster relief donations.
In response, convener for the disaster fund supervisory committee, former premier Simon Chang (張善政), said that concerned donors could stipulate how their donation is to be allocated and if not satisfied they could apply for their money to be returned.
However, he also sought to shift responsibility to the central government, saying that National Development Council Minister Chen Mei-ling (陳美伶) recommended following the lead of the Tainan City Government in fund allocations after an earthquake in February 2016.
In a news conference on Monday, Hualien County Commissioner Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) attempted to account for the decision by saying that both the Tainan and Kaohsiung city governments — the latter following the gas explosions in late July 2014 — have made similar decisions.
Fu was either misinformed, caught in an immediately falsifiable untruth or found to be disingenuously distorting the facts.
The respective government records show that the Tainan City Government allocated precisely 0 percent of public donations to businesses for the aforementioned earthquake relief, while the Kaohsiung City Government allocated a mere 4 percent to businesses following the gas explosions.
Hualien quarries were hit hard. They rely on exports and have had to weather the global financial crisis, competition from China and now this destructive earthquake.
Representatives interviewed about this also said they were unaware as to the source of the financial assistance the local government was offering and would not have accepted it had they known it was funded by public donations.
While businesses can reasonably expect the government to offer financial assistance, this should not be funded by charitable donations. When people donate they do not expect charities to plow their money into local businesses in the hope that this would help create jobs. It is difficult to see how the local government can justify its fund allocations.
The suggestion that donors designate how their money is to be used is misguided. People who donate to disaster relief funds do so with the reasonable expectation that their money will reach the vulnerable directly affected by the specific disaster, by an institution equipped with the expertise to identify the most needy, as well as the proper distribution channels.
There should be more oversight and guidance on how public donations to disaster relief funds are handled.
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