£500,000 will not be recovered from former Swansea-based charity Awema
THE co-ordination of public money to a former Swansea-based charity wound up amid allegations of financial mismanagement, was “often weak”, a report has concluded.
And the study has also concluded that more than £500,000 will not be recovered from The All Wales Ethnic Minority Association, which was wound up earlier this year, after an earlier report identified “significant and fundamental failures” in its governance.
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Naz Malik
But the Wales Audit Office, which today publishes its report into the relationship between Awema and the Welsh Government, found there was no evidence of inappropriate political influence over funding decisions.
Assistant auditor general Anthony Barrett, said: “We have established that the Welsh Government’s payments to Awema totalled £7.15 million, with a further £3.01 million having been committed in principle before the Welsh Government announced the termination of its funding on 9 February 2012.
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“The Welsh Government’s management and co-ordination of its grant funding to Awema was often weak and its responses to historical concerns about Awema were too narrowly focused.
Consequences
“By contrast, the Welsh Government responded robustly to the concerns that emerged about Awema in December 2011, but dealing with the consequences has been time-consuming.
“While the outcome of the liquidation process is not yet known, it is clear that the Welsh Government will not recover most of the £545,966 debt it now believes it is owed by Awema, as this far exceeds the amounts available to reimburse creditors.”
Awema, which was based on The Kingsway, was wound up following a report which revealed its chief executive, Naz Malik, had claimed £9,000 as an advance on future expenses, to pay off his credit card, and used taxpayers money to pay a parking fine and fund tickets to rugby and cricket matches and gym membership.
Audit
His daughter Tegwen, the charity’s operations director, had also seen her salary more than double since 2008, to just over £50,052.
Mr Barrett added: “Importantly, our audit work found no evidence of inappropriate political influence on the part of any current or former ministers or Assembly Members.
A Welsh Government spokesman said: “We welcome this report, which was requested by the Welsh Government, and have co-operated fully with the Wales Audit Office in its preparation.
“The Welsh Government is already acting on the lessons contained in the report which will build on the work under way to improve the future management of our grants programme.”
Comments
by sochat
Friday, October 19 2012, 5:34AM
“Naz malik leading member of the liebor party,say no more except corruption.”
by newsaffair
Thursday, October 18 2012, 7:57PM
“Well CJ has plenty to be smiling at now ,as the Lessons Will Be Learnt inquiry,has been produced, and delivered,to his benefit (as his reported comments back in February states.)
Criticism of the Welsh Government has been proved correct,as there have been 19 failures to date.
The silence from them today, is proof of their mismanagement,will they make a statement when the fury dies down?
What hope is there being, of them doing something,if past performance is anything to go by?”
by SAswan
Thursday, October 18 2012, 1:21PM
“if this was someone fiddling benefits they would be jailed”
by CityLover
Thursday, October 18 2012, 1:00PM
“Surely Naz Malik and his daughter Tegwen, must be charged.
This is in the public interest as it was our money that helped fund them.”
by Stork
Thursday, October 18 2012, 12:13PM
“I was under the impression that every Charity held Indemnity Insurance, both to protect the Committee Members, and to ensure that a claim could be made to the Indemnifier, should "things go wrong".
Has anyone checked the scheme's Insurance cover, did they have Insurance cover, if not, why not, and has a claim been made ?
I also don't quite understand how WAG could allow a Charity to in effect, owe it £545,966. Whilst WAG should not be too interfering in a Charity's affairs, this amount of money shows an alarming amount of WAG management "slack".
I suppose the next we will hear from WAG, is that " lessons have been learned", again. Whichever civil servant who invented that phrase, has probably been knighted.”
by newsaffair
Thursday, October 18 2012, 11:58AM
“This report doesn`t mention anything about the decade of failure,and warnings from other AMs.,surely the need for justice and fairness should be uppermost,for this assembly to regain any sense of credibility.
If proper checks were ignored when this money was dished out,and future warnings given little appraisal,there does need an in depth look at what was happening!!
£7.1million is a lot of money to mismange,it puts some famous robberies in the shade!”
by Jiffy
Thursday, October 18 2012, 10:30AM
“Naz Malik gets off scot free?
It would be interesting to know what Naz Malik is involved in now. I'm surprised the media hasn't looked into what has happened to the leading employees since the charity was forced to close.”
by newsaffair
Thursday, October 18 2012, 10:08AM
“Well,what a total fiasco!,
" The government will build on the work under way,to improve the future management of the grants programme." INCREDIBLE!!
The electorate need to know who,why ,when,and where,the mismanagement of Awema,and the Welsh government,continued, and not use the cliche "ways to improve".
For the Wag to shovel cash down the throat of this organisation,without adequate constraints,needs an independant investigation,to really see what happened.
This report was commissioned by the WAG,for the WAG,and it`s remit was drawn by the WAG,is this not a conflict of interest?
We all can hope that this report is not the only answer we are going to get over this debacle!!”