Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (
Huang said the ministry currently has around US$2.57 million of funds raised after last year's tsunami disaster that hasn't been appropriated yet, but has been designated to the tsunami-stricken Sri Lanka and the Aceh province of Indonesia.
"As far as I know, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not have such an arrangement [to donate the money to Clinton]. The funds have actually been designated to Sri Lanka and Indonesia. But these two governments haven't requested the money. That's why the funds haven't been appropriated to them yet," Huang said.
Donations
Ministry Spokesperson Michel Lu (呂慶龍) said yesterday that the ministry had raised a total of US$56.10 million in donations for relief efforts after the tsunami last year.
The ministry has completed most of its tsunami aid operations, except for US$2.57 million, which would be given to Sri Lanka and Indonesia as soon as the ministry received a complete report detailing the use of the money, Lu said.
Of the US$2.57 million, the ministry planned to give US$500,000 to Sri Lanka to construct about 100 houses, while the remaining US$2.07 million would be donated to the Syiah Kuala University in Indonesia's Aceh province, the area that was hardest hit by the tsunami, Lu said.
However, because a Taiwanese non-governmental association known as Dharma Drum Mountain had been working on a similar public housing project for Sri Lanka, the ministry considered using the money to supplement general reconstruction of public housing infrastructure, Lu said.
Dharma Drum Mountain is an international Buddhist cultural and educational foundation.
On the other hand, the Indonesian university has not yet submitted a concrete plan on the reconstruction of the school, which led to the delay in allocating the funding, Lu said.
The Chinese-language Apple Daily newspaper yesterday reported that the government was planning to divert part of the nation's tsunami-relief donations to the Clinton Foundation, which is also involved in the tsunami reconstruction efforts.
Go-between
The report said that Theodore Huang (
The report cited unnamed government sources as saying that the purpose of the contribution was to bet on Hillary Clinton becoming the next US president in 2008.
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