{"id":4955,"date":"2015-05-16T12:12:35","date_gmt":"2015-05-16T12:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=4955"},"modified":"2015-05-16T12:12:35","modified_gmt":"2015-05-16T12:12:35","slug":"uk-agency-investigates-allegations-of-financial-misconduct-against-obasanjo-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=4955","title":{"rendered":"UK agency investigates allegations of financial misconduct against Obasanjo Foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United Kingdom Charity Commission says it has received many complaints about the Olusegun Obasanjo Foundation in London concerning allegations of financial misconduct and conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n

The UKCC\u2019s spokesperson, Sarah Hitchings, told our correspondent in an email that the commission had also started a broad investigation into the matters because the foundation had violated its regulatory standards.<\/p>\n

She said, \u201cWe have received complaints about this charity and issues including alleged conflicts of interest and alleged financial misconduct.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe currently have an open case in relation to this charity and have been in contact with the trustees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have recently become aware of further information about potential wrong-doing at the charity which is of regulatory concern to the commission and we are currently considering this new information. We cannot comment further while our case is live.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the commission refused to comment on any actions taken against the recently sacked London-based Chief Executive Officer of the foundation, Anne Welsh, on allegations of money laundering.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot give information about a charge on the chief executive officer \u2013 this would be a question for the Police,\u201d Hitchings added.<\/p>\n

The Chief of Staff to former President Obasanjo, Mr. Victor Durodola, had told Saturday PUNCH that Welsh was relieved of her duties due to allegations of money laundering activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is true and it is sad,\u201d he said, while commenting on the sacking of the former chief executive.<\/p>\n

SaharaReporters had earlier obtained a video footage, which showed that Welsh was allegedly involved in plotting a $4.9m (N980m) scheme to exploit the Ebola Virus Disease tragedy in West Africa through helping a group of \u201cLebanese businessmen,\u201d who wished to donate money to the Obasanjo Foundation for some works in Sierra Leone.<\/p>\n

The footage revealed that the group demanded that it would make a donation of $2m (N400m) to the foundation if it helped it launder the balance of $2.9m, which Welsh agreed to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to go through training, through president Obasanjo, political training for one year to become discreet,\u201d she said in the video,\u201d adding that, \u201cSometimes, we get dollars from people who give money to our foundation and they say they don\u2019t want it to be known that they donated the money, but they want to have a letter on our letterhead and a letter from Obasanjo just to say \u2018Thank you\u2019 for your kind donations to the foundation for the work to support Ebola.\u2019 That\u2019s it. That is what we normally do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Welsh had also demanded from the group an interest of 30 per cent on the $2.9m.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least 30 per cent; think about the hard work I\u2019m going to put into this, you will be so grateful to me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The video evidence had also showed that the group agreed to give her the 30 per cent, which was $90,000 (N180m), and detailed how the money would be transferred via a Nigerian bank.\"obasanjo\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United Kingdom Charity Commission says it has received many complaints about the Olusegun Obasanjo Foundation in London concerning allegations of financial misconduct and conflicts of interest. The UKCC\u2019s spokesperson, Sarah Hitchings, told our correspondent in an email that the commission had also started a broad investigation into the matters because the foundation had violated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[156,223],"class_list":["post-4955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","tag-general-olusegun-obasanjo","tag-united-kingdom-charity-commission"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/obasanjo.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-1hV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4956,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4955\/revisions\/4956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}