The Commission has redistributed approximately £196,000 of the money Mr Mohammed Hasnath and Ms Ruksana Ali (the former trustees) raised and both have been removed as trustees from the fund and disqualified.
The former trustees operated two online fundraising platforms, creating a
fund for Rohingya refugees. Whilst they never registered the fund as a
charity, its stated purpose made it charitable under the law.
In
2018, the Commission uncovered the fund and that its trustees were
asking for donations to their personal bank accounts. Information on the
platforms showed over £200,000 had been donated to the fund.
The Commission opened a statutory inquiry, finding:
• there were no governance or financial controls in place to protect and apply the funds raised
•
funds had been transferred into six personal bank accounts and a PayPal
account, mixing it with personal money already in these accounts
•
£68,748.81 of charitable funds could not be properly accounted for and
was likely to have been used as non-charitable private expenditure by
the former trustees
• there was insufficient evidence of activity by the charitable fund
The
former trustees’ failure to implement any governance or financial
controls made it impossible for them to ensure that charitable funds
were protected or applied and this amounts to misconduct and/or
mismanagement.
The Commission has removed both trustees from the
fund and disqualified them from acting as trustees or holding a senior
management function at a charity.
Steve Roake, Head of Compliance, Visits and Inspections at the Charity Commission, said:
“Charities
exist to improve lives and strengthen society, so it is vital that
trustees fulfil their responsibility to act in the best interests of
their charity at all times. Instead, this inquiry uncovered misconduct
by these trustees who likely allowed funds to go astray and demonstrated
a disregard for the standards and behaviours expected of them. It’s
right we’ve removed these individuals from acting as trustees.
“We’re
glad we’ve been able to use our powers to protect the remaining funds
and ensure this money has now safely reached the cause for which it was
intended.”
The Commission has transferred the remaining
£196,528.58 raised by the fund to two registered charities that support
Rohingya refugees.
The full report is available on GOV.UK.
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