Asia, Far East, news and analysis Times Online, The Times, Sunday Times

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Asia

The Times December 26, 2005

�244m donations are still unused in charity accounts
By Daniel McGrory
BRITAIN’S leading charities have banked twice as much money from last year’s tsunami appeal as they have spent so far in those countries ravaged by the waves. The public donated a record �372 million, but at the last count the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) has spent only �128 million.

Aid workers explain that the overwhelming public response presented them with a challenge almost as daunting as coping with the world’s biggest relief operation. Beverley Cohen, of the DEC, which embraces a dozen of Britain’s best-known aid agencies, said: “Cash was coming in faster than we could spend it. We would have loved to have housed everybody by now, and have every child back in school, but this was never going to be a quick fix."