People’s Daily (人民网), September 2, 2013
Concerns about the quality of the investigation into a case involving the mysterious building and subsequent destruction of a Song Qingling statue by the Henan Song Qingling Foundation have led to public complaints about the passivity of investigating agencies. The excessive construction costs of RMB 120 million for the 20-meter statue first caught the attention of the media and public, leading to opprobrium over the spending and lack of transparency among government-organized NGOs (GONGOs), and its subsequent demolition did nothing to quell concerns about irresponsible spending and disreputable funding sources. Promised an investigation into the organization’s state of affairs, a process which has yielded no results in the two months since the scandal broke, experts are accusing the responsible units of failing to properly investigate the matter. A particularly suspicious fact is that despite this scandal, the foundation was apparently able to pass its annual examination by the Henan Civil Affairs Bureau. When approached by the media, the Civil Affairs Bureau responded that it had three responsibilities regarding the organization — the annual exam, which was in accordance with their standards; everyday supervision, in which the CAB did not discover any evidence of private property possession by the foundation; and the punishment of violations, which were not revealed in the foundation’s operation.
