The victims of a blaze that gutted a skyscraper in Shanghai in November demanded more transparency in the distribution of donations, media reports said Tuesday, amid a nationwide crisis of faith concerning charitable organizations after allegations of fraud. 

Wang Hong, a private advertising firm owner whose wife and mother perished in the fire, complained that local charity organizations had collected 44.8 million yuan ($7.01 million) in donations after the disaster, but only distributed 4.2 million of that to victims.

"Those donations were meant for the victims, but after almost a year, where have the other 40 million yuan gone?" Wang, who represents 21 victims, told the Global Times.

Wang said this amount had been reached through calculations of donations made by the media, but these numbers could not be verified by press time.

A press officer for the Shanghai Charity Foundation told the Global Times that the foundation had carried out its duties fully, but refused to specify the amount of the donations received or their usage.

"We have informed the relatives of the victims to come and claim their money, but some of them have not shown up," he said, adding that details of the donations would be published in a few days.

However, Wang Hong said that he had had no communication with any charity foundations in Shanghai about the donations.

Both individuals and organizations, including some foreign companies, rushed to pledge money after the fire in Shanghai's Jing'an district, which killed 58 people and injured 71 others.

By November 19, four days after the incident, the Shanghai Charity Foundation had already received over 6 million yuan from around 470 donators, according to the Jiefang Daily.

Wang noted that he and the victims he represents have entrusted Yuan Yu, a lawyer in Shanghai, to demand that the relevant charity bodies fully disclose donation details. 

Yuan told the Global Times that an administrative appeal was lodged at a local court late August and would be replied to within two weeks.

"We have the right to know where the donations went. If they tell us that the money has been used to help others, such as people living in poverty, I'm fine with that," Wang said.

Wang Su, the secretary-general of the Jing'an branch of the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC), said that the money raised for victims of the fire had been used exclusively for its designated purpose.

"Our branch received about 7 million yuan in donations after the fire. We transferred all of this amount to the charity foundation of Jing'an district," Wang Su told the Jinan Times.

After the fire, each family of a deceased victim received 960,000 yuan in compensation, including a 310,000 yuan social donation and a 650,000 yuan one-time compensation package, according to a government statement.

Wang Hong said that about 40 families who had lost relatives had still not signed compensation agreements with the government, as they still demand more in-depth information about the cause of the fire.

Calls to the Jing'an district government went unanswered.

If confirmed, Wang Hong's claims could deal another blow to China's charity organizations, which are already facing a credibility crisis after a slew of scandals.

The most notorious of these happened in June, when a young woman, Guo Meimei, claimed to be the general manager of the alleged Red Cross Chamber of Commerce and showed off her luxury lifestyle on her Sina Weibo account.

This triggered an onslaught of nationwide anger as corruption speculation swirled around the RCSC. The organization launched an online database at the end of July as its first step to improve transparency and to rebuild trust.

In another scandal, people in Fujian Province donated money to the local Red Cross to save Su Tiantian, a 19-old-girl suffering from a fatal disease.

However, the 50,000 yuan donated only reached Su's mother on August 16, a month after Su had already passed away in hospital.

Deng Guosheng, the director at School of Public Administration of Tsinghua University, told the Global Times that all these scandals highlight a lack of transparency and rampant inefficiency among charity organizations in China.

"They should disclose information about donations to the public regularly, but they have failed to do so. Without transparency, embezzlement will happen, and public anger will rise," Deng said, calling for reforms in charity organizations, especially for those with government connections.

According to data released by the China Charity and Donation Information Center in 2010, only 25 percent of charity organizations in the country regularly publish information about donations.

Liu Linlin contributed to this story