What exactly is "Charity" ?

I was reading this article here about Balkis (Selangor "BN" assemblymen and MPs wives charity organization) and how the organization has been allocating the donations that they had been receiving.

Here are some of the details. Bear in mind that this is only the tip of the iceberg.

* RM206,000 for souvenirs which included a few hundred stalks of artificial flowers and 2,700 hats

* RM65,300 for Songket material to be given as gifts to the Sultan of Selangor, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed and Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali (Since when did these guys qualify as charity recipients ?)

* RM25,000 for souvenir chocolates (What exactly did they put in those chocolates ?)

* RM1.2 million for technical visits to Tokyo Disneyland, Korea and Hong Kong (Does Mickey Mouse need our help ?)

Of course, Balkis has now been dissolved for over a year and their remaining funds (RM9.9 million) has been transferred to Bakti (the Federal equivalent of Bakti). I won’t delve into the allegations that the dissolution was illegal and that the Barisan National representatives’ wives had no business transferring the funds to Bakti. Suffice to say that if I had donated money to a particular charity it’s because I believe in it’s cause and I wouldn’t be happy if the money was subsequently transferred to another charitable body.

No, my thoughts as I was reading the article was how could Balkis, in good conscience, spend money meant for charity on those items ? When I read a World Vision newsletter and see that the cost of sponsoring a child for one year is RM600 – and I compare it to the sums spent above – yes, it pains me. And it makes me angry. And it makes me even more angry when I know that a big chunk of the donations came from state government-linked corporations i.e. OUR MONEY.

And to be frank, when a corporation or a businessman donates to Balkis they’ll usually chalk it off as “the cost of doing business”. What ?! Do you seriously believe they think of it as a donation for charity ?

You wanna know the sweet irony of this post ? World Vision actually has a programme to help out the natives in Sarawak. Balkis didn’t even have to allocate the money outside Malaysia to have actually done some CHARITY WORK.