Kung Fu star Jet Li’s foundation denies siphoning off donations
Print Edition
KUNG Fu star Jet Li’s charity foundation has rubbished claims of embezzlement by the organization.
A day after a news comment website, www.m4.cn, claimed on Weibo that the Shenzhen-based One Foundation may have siphoned off 300 million yuan (US$48.06 million) in donations, the foundation said every penny was spent carefully.
The website said One Foundation had received nearly 385.52 million yuan in donations after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Lushan County in Ya’an City in Sichuan Province on April 20, 2013, killing 196 and affecting 2.31 million people.
By March 31, the foundation had only spent 47.01 million yuan for the affected people. “Where do our donations go? It is outrageous. Does it mean that Li has embezzled 300 million yuan,” the website queried.
The figures were uploaded by the Foundation Project Transparency Index on The China Foundation Center website, an independent non-governmental information disclosure platform for foundations.
Yang Peng, the secretary-general of One Foundation, denied misusing funds in a posting on his Weibo blog yesterday.
“We understand that some want us to spend the funds as soon as possible. But post-disaster reconstruction needs time. We have learnt from experience that projects are mired in quality problems due to fast but careless work,” Yang wrote.
“Quality is the priority. We never try to spend money fast. Please be patient to see the results of what we have done and then judge us. Let’s wait for the final result in one or two years. We won’t let you down, please support us,” Yang wrote.
Jet Li himself has not commented over the controversy yet.
But in his April 20 Weibo post, the action star wrote: “One Foundation has earned support and doubts as well. But we still insist on doing good every day. It is our dream.”
The same day, One Foundation published a report detailing its activities of the past year. The first two months after the earthquake was spent in rescue efforts with more than 250 volunteers working with 28 rescue teams. A Deloitte auditing report showed the foundation raised 317.46 million yuan and spent 17.66 million yuan during that period.
This was followed by building temporary dwellings. It spent 720,000 yuan on washing machines, 850,000 yuan installing clean water system and 5 million yuan setting up solar-powered bath houses, among others.
It has now entered the third, post-disaster reconstruction period during which it plans to build five schools, 12 community disaster relief centers, and train 2,054 villagers on building skills.
As per its own four-year developmental plan, beginning 2014, the foundation will spend nearly 340.21 million yuan on a series of projects.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
