China's Red Cross responds to critics
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China.org,cn, August 2, 2011
The Red Cross Society of China (RCSC), one of China's leading government-sponsored charity organizations, responded to netizens' doubts about its donation information on Monday, a day after the RCSC launched an online?platform to provide more transparency to the public.
Information can be searched by the donor's names at the website, http://fabu.redcross.org.cn.
Information regarding donations to areas devastated by last year's 7.1-magnitude earthquake in Yushu of northwest Qinghai Province, including the total amount of donations and the way in which the funds were distributed, is some of the first information featured on the site.
The website has attracted more than 18 million visitors to check out donation information, as well as RCSC's auditing and fiscal reports, Xinhua reported.
Some visitors raised questions.
Some donators failed to provide complete personal information and the database is still operating on a trial basis, so there could be some inaccurate information, but the RCSC will provide help if a donator wants to verify his or her donation, the charity's secretary general Wang Rupeng said.
Currently, people can only get access to information on donations to the RCSC national organization after January 11, 2010, whereas information about donations to the Chinese Red Cross Foundation (CRCF) and the RCSC's local branches is not available.
According to Wang, the CRCF and the RCSC's local branches are following the RCSC's step to set up online database, hoping to publicize all the donation information in two years.
"Our objective is to inform the public of all the information on each donation," Wang said. "But the current database still has a lot to improve, and we're all ears to public suggestions to improve transparency."
