Tsunami: An Honest Charity
News 24
International medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres is tracking down hundreds of thousands of tsunami donors worldwide and offering them their money back after it received four times as much money as it needed, a report said on Wednesday.
In Australia alone the charity sent out more than 4 000 letters telling donors it could not use their money for tsunami victims, the Sydney Morning Herald said.
It had 172 requests for refunds totalling A$93 000 (about R437 000) while about 1 700 donors specified other appeals and the rest left the matter up to the charity’s discretion.
Medecins Sans Frontieres received four times the ‘20m it needed to fund its response to the December 26 disaster.
The charity’s president, Rowan Gillies, was quoted as saying it was ethically compelled to contact every donor of the surplus and offer to return it.
“We have never before had to turn down funds and we’ve never before offered people money back. It’s an administrative nightmare,” said Philippe Couturier, executive officer of the Australian branch.
As for the notion that aid is not reaching Aceh, Bull oney!
World Vision
Samaritan’s Purse
Catholic Relief Services
Mercy Corps
All of the above have info at the links about the work they are doing in Aceh. There is a very comprehensive, multi-lingual look atAceh and aid at Relief Web.
There’s a great deal being done. Is some of the aid going to graft and corruption? Of course. But this guy is so off the mark, I have to suspect he has a different agenda.
If I had even a hint that things were going dreadfully wrong, I’d have been trumpeting it from the housetops. I didn’t spend all that time keeping the Stingy List for nothing.
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