Charity survey finds need for transparency

A local government survey found that 62.8 percent of respondents want charity organizations to regularly publish their financial audits, the Shanghai Statistics Bureau said Tuesday.

The survey results indicate that some local residents are skeptical about how charities manage their donations.

"It shows that local charity organizations are suffering from a credibility crisis," said Yu Hai, a sociology professor at Fudan University.

The Shanghai Statistics Bureau surveyed 1,000 local residents above the age of 16 to examine local expectations about charities.

About 48 percent of respondents said they wanted more information about how much money charity organizations collect and who ultimately receives the donations.

Charitable donations received in 264 cities in China fell to about 21.2 billion yuan ($3.39 billion) in 2011, down from 24.2 billion yuan in the previous year, according to figures released in July by the China Charity and Donation Information Center, which is part of the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Many charities lack transparent accounting because they are semi-official organizations that have a monopoly status, Yu said. Under Chinese law, only civil affairs departments, Red Cross societies and charitable foundations attached to the government can collect charitable donations.

Charity organization transparency has become a hot issue in the wake of several recent scandals.

A top Chinese charity defended itself from money laundering accusations Tuesday after an Internet user posted a financial statement that showed about 4.8 billion yuan in cash had been secretly transferred in and out of the foundation without accompanying records.

The Beijing-based China Charities Aid Foundation for Children responded to money laundering accusations by saying that staff had mistakenly written 4.75 billion instead of 0.475 billion when making the cash flow statement, but doubts still remain after Web users raised further questions about the explanation, while experts also pointed out irregularities in the financial report's auditing results.

In 2011, the Red Cross Society of China came under fire after a 20-year-old woman named Guo Meimei, who claimed to be the general manager of a company called Red Cross Commerce, boasted about her luxurious lifestyle on her microblog, showing off her luxury cars, expensive handbags and palatial villa.

She became the trigger for Chinese Internet users to express their discontent with the lack of transparency at the Red Cross and other government-affiliated charity organizations.

"I hope this will help national charity organizations realize their problem and take measures to reform their policies and accept greater supervision from the public," Yu told to the Global Times.