After dragging its feet for months, Wal-Mart has finally decided to make good on its promise to donate to the earthquake relief in Sichuan, China by actually donating something!  On October 26, Wal-Mart held a donation ceremony (pictured on the right) to donate 2,566,000RMB (about $375,000) worth of ambulances and medical supplies to 20 different organizations in several cities throughout Sichuan.  And never one to miss out on publicity, Wal-Mart has even tagged the ambulances with the Wal-Mart brand (pictured after the jump).

Since the 8.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Sichuan in May, Wal-Mart has been plagued by criticism for its relatively low donation to the earthquake relief and Wal-Mart’s failure to live up to said donations.  Wal-Mart China’s PR director, Jonathan Dong, has been working overtime defending the company’s image - even writing to Wal-Mart Watch, imploring us not to spread negative stories about Wal-Mart’s donation fiasco. Asked why Wal-Mart hadn’t fulfilled its donation pledge, Dong stated that spending money is difficult! Fortunately for Mr. Dong, it looks like this problem may finally be ending.

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Allegations of campaign violations are rising in the Big Sky State, and a recently-released decision on a 2006 complaint might lead to changes in Montana’s campaign finance law.

Complaints of violations flowing in at the rate of about 30 per day to the state’s Commissioner or Political Practices, have of which are coming from Ravalli County in southwestern Montana. According to the Ravalli Republic:

The state’s most pressing investigation in Ravalli County concerns the Higher Ground Foundation, a nonprofit group that is urging voters to repeal the county’s growth policy in an effort to prevent zoning and streamside setback regulations from being adopted later.

The group formed as an “incidental committee,” which are defined as a group that makes political contributions but whose primary purpose isn’t to influence elections. But it has become clear to many that Higher Ground has a higher purpose than simply contributing funds, and is instead directly promoting the repeal of the county’s growth policy. Complainants are urging the state to force the group disclose the sources of its funding, and its expenditures.

So how does this tie into Wal-Mart? Well, just over a week ago, Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Dennis Unsworth released his opinion regarding a 2006 complaint against a group called Ravalli County Citizens for Free Enterprise. The group supported construction of a Wal-Mart Supercenter and the successful repeal of a zoning ordinance that blocked big-box stores. Unsworth ruled that RCCFE was nothing more than a Wal-Mart front-group that violated financial reporting and record-keeping laws. He said that Wal-Mart appeared to have bought a campaign in order to influence an election, and that the case could lead to Third party campaigning is growing in the state [The Missoulian]” title="changes in Montana’s campaign finance disclosure laws">changes in Montana’s campaign finance disclosure laws. It turned out that only $90 of the PAC’s money came from local residents, whereas $115,000 came from Wal-Mart.

“It’s absolutely critical,” Unsworth said, “that voters know who’s behind these groups, in order to make informed decisions.”

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You might recall several posts we did regarding Wal-Mart’s donations to China’s earthquake relief efforts.  Those posts all cited numerous articles which detailed not only Wal-Mart’s meager donation pledges, but also that Wal-Mart had largely failed to follow through on their donations.  Worse, another story surfaced about how Wal-Mart would potentially profit off the earthquake victims by building stores in the earthquake region.

All these posts were a bit too much for Wal-Mart China’s director of public relations Jonathan Dong.  He even wrote us a strongly worded letter to express his dismay.  Unfortunately for Jonathan Dong, this story just won’t end.

According to a recent article from Beibu Gulf ASEAN Economic Web, Wal-Mart STILL has not met its donation targets!  Luckily, Jonathan has prepared a response:  “Spending money is hard.”

Public relations director Jonathan Dong (董玉国) explained “contributing money is easy; spending money is difficult. On May 23, Wal-Mart decided to give away an additional 17 million .  The company immediately looked for projects to aid, looking at subsidizing schools, orphanages, etc.  But Wal-Mart found out that many [companies] were financing the same projects.” At present time, Wal-Mart is in the process of seeking suitable projects to support.

Imagine that.