No wonder studies abroad show that the four most profitable industries in the world are: real estate, Wall Street, the electronics industry, and non-profit organizations.
While I was still surprised that Wall Street could be classified directly as an industry, I was most envious of the fact that non-profit organizations are super profitable. No wonder groups of youth are joining this industry.
However, Watchout continues to use the phrase “financial management errors” to cover up the mistakes made by their own (usually, when people hear “financial errors” that are serious enough to lose the title of CEO, most would directly associate it with suspected criminal activity!). It’s really making people feel… well, a sense of helplessness.
And judging from the unified statements from Liu Lin-wei and Watchout, they must have already “finished talking” in private.
Watchout founder Liu Lin-wei stated on Facebook today that during his tenure as representative and CEO of Watchout, he made major errors in financial management and has resigned from all positions in the company effective immediately.
Watchout issued a statement saying that Liu Lin-wei made major financial management errors during his tenure. After verification, the company handled it promptly at the first opportunity and has corrected the errors; Watchout reserves the right to legal prosecution.
Watchout is deeply remorseful and will learn from this painful experience, reflect and examine itself, face the problem, hide nothing, and dodge nothing. It will establish a stricter internal control mechanism to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
Watchout: No funds missing, reserving right to legal prosecution.
Watchout spokesperson Lin Tsu-yi… said that while organizing internal financial issues, Watchout found flaws in Liu Lin-wei’s financial management. Watchout members believe that financial matters should be handled cautiously and cannot be settled privately, thus the decision was made to remove him from the CEO position and make the matter public.
Lin Tsu-yi said that so far, no funds have been found missing, and Watchout has no substantial losses. However, due to flaws in financial management, they are reserving the right to legal prosecution in case problems are found in subsequent verification.
Wang Jing-hong (tonyq), who assisted Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je in winning the “online election,” posted on Facebook that the news about Liu Lin-wei was too disappointing. “I don’t think Watchout and the group of people who believed in Watchout (including myself) will accept such an ambiguous description as ‘major financial error.’ From the phrase ‘major financial error,’ my first instinctual association would even be fraud or embezzlement.”
Wang Jing-hong believes that for those who donated to and supported Watchout out of trust and respect, this matter cannot be dismissed with just “major financial errors.” Regarding external rumors and speculation, Watchout should clarify as soon as possible. Making a mistake is not shameful, but being afraid to admit a mistake is. As a social enterprise hoping for public participation, they cannot just gloss over it with a phrase like “major financial decision failure.”
Basically, discovering problems only when organizing internal finances means the process of tampering couldn’t have just happened in the last few days. And Watchout’s statement that there are no substantial losses makes one wonder—could it be that Liu Lin-wei was just bored and playing games by moving March’s accounts to April and April’s to March?
No matter how you think about it, that’s impossible.
Even more shocking is that it turns out these citizen groups have never hired qualified accountants to perform financial audits. Heaven knows how much tampering can be done in between.
Today, it might have been exposed because one person lost hundreds of thousands of yuan. If one day a group of people collaborates to squander the blood and sweat we supported on their own pleasure, I would feel like a piggy bank being played with by them.
I want to repeat the most important part again loudly: “Citizen groups do not have legal accountants for financial audits.”
This has made me extremely distrustful of these citizen groups composed of so-called elites like lawyers, doctors, and cultural figures. They ought to be the ones most familiar with the mechanisms.
Yet Watchout would rather use ambiguous rhetoric repeatedly to fool us supporters than hand Liu Lin-wei directly over to the law to resolve the controversy. In the end, he was even ousted by few internal members in a private struggle. Perhaps this is the most disappointing part about this group of people claiming to pursue citizen power.
Isn’t What We Want Just Fairness and Justice?
Furthermore, after being baptized by wave after wave of politicians and entertainers in recent years, everyone has long understood one thing: the so-called “reserving the right to legal prosecution” is just a bureaucratic synonym for inaction.
“Reserving the right to prosecution” has no meaning whatsoever in law; it’s a dedicated term used by high officials and celebrities during PR shows (only heaven and the underworld know what those people negotiated behind the scenes). Watchout was originally the group that knew this meaning most deeply, yet in the end, they still chose to use this kind of perfunctory rhetoric on their supporters. It’s truly saddening.
And the phrase in Watchout’s press release: “Learn from painful experience, reflect and examine, face the problem,” gave me a feeling of seeing “Ma Ying-jeou 3.0.”
I really want to shout “Wo-cao” (Watchout).
Now, with regard to Watchout, my heart is filled only with regret and helplessness.
As for whether other citizen groups have similar problems, perhaps it’s just that the time hasn’t come for them to be exposed yet. That’s all I can think.
Conclusion: It seems that Watchout, while carrying the righteousness of a citizen group, is actually no different from the KMT or Tzu Chi that we love to criticize most.
I might not be the kind of fanatic fan who automatically sticks to anyone holding a “Citizen or Justice” sign, but in my heart, I still somewhat supported the actions of these young people.
But just a year later, the scandals of some core groups from the 318 Sunflower Movement have almost all been exposed—one for groping, one for being framed (I can only use a nicer way to say it), and one being ousted. In the end, this group of people turns out to be just a bunch of youth cadre training class members in the political world…
I can already imagine what kind of people they will be when they reach their forties or fifties (thinking back, Ma Ying-jeou was also once among those shouting for freedom).
(Actually, those with leadership charisma who stray usually end up at some kind of extreme… [sips hot tea].) 迫