The National Audit Office has sent a task force to probe the Henan Soong Ching Ling Foundation, which is accused of profiting by lending out millions of donations.
The foundation is under fire over its complex operations amid several murky scandals exposed by local media on Thursday. According to Caixin magazine yesterday, the National Audit Office in Henan last month began checking the books of a youth centre run by the Henan foundation. The auditors also recently started checking the accounts of the foundation's charity medical insurance and investment projects.
At the weekend, Henan's United Front Work Department and the provincial Department of Civil Affairs also announced that they would launch an investigation after media reports of problems involving the foundation.
The move comes amid the latest in a string of allegations of abuse of donations at officially sanctioned NGOs on the mainland.
On Saturday, China News Service reported that many managers at the charity house were also holding positions in the provincial legislature or government departments.
The Henan foundation's chairman, Liu Yujie , was reportedly found to have taken the chairman's role in the Henan Provincial People's Political Consultative Conference, the province's top legislature. And the standing vice-chairman of the foundation, Zhao Fengyu , is currently the deputy director of a provincial committee dedicated to the well-being of young people.