Red Cross pledges transparency amid trust crisis
Updated: 2011-07-08 06:15
(Xinhua)
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BEIJING - The Red Cross Society of China (RCSC), one of China's leading government-sponsored charity organizations, on Thursday pledged to increase transparency in donations and expenditure management amid a mounting public trust crisis.
In a statement released on the closing of a two-day accountability-themed meeting of the RCSC, the charity said it would "humbly listen to public opinion, improve its sense of responsibility...and strive to increase its credibility among the public."
According to the statement, the charity will speed up the setting up of a transparent working system and a long-term mechanism to promote honesty and fight corruption within the RCSC.
A heated debate has raged over the charity after a 20-year-old girl Guo Meimei posted photos on her microblog detailing her lavish lifestyle.
An actress known for a pop song "Bupa Bupa," which literally means "Not Afraid" in English, Guo claimed to be general manager of "Red Cross Commerce," on her account with weibo.com, a major Chinese microblogging services run by Sina.
Her posts provoked the ire of the country's netizens, many who believed that Guo could have funded her lifestyle by embezzling money from the Red Cross Society.
The RCSC has categorically rejected the existence of "Red Cross Commerce" and denied any links with Guo.
In a statement issued Thursday night, Beijing police said their investigations found that Guo, a native of Yiyang city of Hunan Province in central China, had no direct links with the RCSC.
Guo has admitted she did not really know the charity nor any of its staff and had no work relations with it either, according to the police.
Police investigations found that Guo only heard about a proposed cooperation between a Shenzhen-based businessman surnamed Wang with the China Business System Red Cross Society during a talk with Wang in March.
A group founded in 2000 by the China General Chamber of Commerce (CGCC) with the approval of RCSC, China Business System Red Cross Society, engages in charity fundraising in China's commercial sector. Funds raised by the group are channeled directly to the RCSC.
Unhappy with her personal profile as an "anchorperson and actress" which was previously shown on Weibo.com, Guo fabricated the identity of "general manager of Red Cross Commerce" for herself on the microblog account, just to show off herself. According to Beijing police, Guo regretted his malpractices and said sorry.
To better interact with netizens amid the trust crisis, the RCSC opened its official microblog account on Weibo.com on Monday.
"We sincerely welcome public and news organizations to oversee our work. If loopholes appear, we will spare no effort to probe and find the truth," said the RCSC secretary general Wang Rupeng said in the microblog.
"However, we hope the public and news organizations to shun extremism ?and treat the Guo Meimei incident in a more rational way," he said.
In a microblog posting Thursday morning, the charity said upon its invitation, auditing authorities have started to check revenues and expenditures of the China Business System Red Cross Society.
"Once the result comes out, we will make it public in a timely manner," the posting added.
This is not the first time that the Red Cross has come under fire.
In April, a photo of an invoice was posted online showing that a department of the Shanghai branch of the Red Cross Society of China spent 9,859 yuan ($1,524) on a meal, sparking public outrage.