Online rumors have swirled over the management of donations offered by private citizens.
The News Lens
Date: 2018/03/20
By: TNL Staff
After the Feb. 6, 2018 earthquake, donations from around the world flowed into Hualien
Credit: Morley J Weston
County’s coffers, but the use of these funds to bail out local industry has proven controversial.
On March 16, 2018, an unverified post on Taiwanese online forum PTT declared that the donations had surpassed NT$2 billion (US$60 million), of which 43.5 percent were spent on disaster victims, 40 percent on bailing out the stoneworking and tourism industries, with the remainder spent on other projects.
One philanthropist going by the name Chen Zhi-han (陳之漢), who said he donated NT$1 million because of his own experience in the 1999 earthquake in Jiji, in Taiwan’s Nantou County, expressed his anger in a widely-viewed online video, accusing the Hualien government of misusing the funds intended for immediate disaster relief and reconstruction: “This wasn’t intended to subsidize industry; companies can always turn a profit again, but once people’s hearts are lost, they can’t be restored.” [FULL STORY]