By Matthew Little and Jason Loftus, Epoch Times Toronto Staff
TORONTO—Anger has erupted in Toronto’s Chinese community after news that money donated in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake sat in a local bank account for nearly four months.
A local Chinese organization—the National Congress of Chinese Canadians (NCCC)—has been under fire for holding onto roughly $1.1 million in donations, and questions are being raised about why the group had not put the money to use earlier.
A 7.9 magnitude earthquake devastated parts of central China when it struck Sichuan Province on May 12. Over 70,000 are believed to have died, many of them school children. The quake was felt 1500 km away in Beijing.
The NCCC, a nationwide pro-Beijing association, responded quickly after the quake. With the help of Toronto Liberal Member of Parliament Jim Karygiannis, the group was able to gain temporary charitable status from Revenue Canada just 12 days after the disaster hit, on May 24. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) even agreed to match donations.
Karygiannis joined leaders of the NCCC and officials from the Toronto Chinese consulate at a press conference to announce the donation drive. The consulate endorsed the effort.
With the charity in place, the NCCC soon collected $1.1 million, much of it from individual donors. The group sent medical supplies and 2,400 tents to China, but the rest of the money sat in an account at the Toronto branch of the Bank of China, a Chinese state-owned bank of which NCCC executive Ping Tan is a chair.
But as weeks and months passed, donors began to raise questions about what had happened to the funds. Those questions soon turned to sharp criticisms.
“How can you expect anything from these people?” wrote one participant in a Chinese-language chat room.
“The rebuilding after the earthquake is close to finished, yet they still have 80 per cent of the donations in their account,” wrote another. “The relief fund was like saving people's lives. I cannot understand what was in their minds.”
More...
The Epoch Times: “A Fresh Look at Our Changing World”
The Epoch Times is a privately held news media company. The center is in New York, but our network of local reporters throughout the world uncovers stories that are authentically local, yet also globally relevant. Our independence enables us to report widely and present a diversity of opinions.
We have offices in 30 countries across five continents, and our content is published in 17 languages. We are proud to offer print and web editions in Chinese, English, German, French, Spanish, Hebrew, Russian, Japanese, Korean and Indonesian, as well as web versions in Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Czech, Slovak, Vietnamese and Swedish.
