ACFID Code of Conduct
Committee
Australian Council for
International Development
12 Napier Close, Deakin
ACT 2600
10th May 2014
Dear Dr Sue-Anne
Wallace
Greg
Brown
John
Gilmore
Bandula
Gonsalkorale
Harwood
Lockton
Dr
Petrus Usmanij
Fadlullah
Wilmot
Dr
Simon Smith
Michelle
Pearce
Julie
Mundy
In response to your letter of 4th
May.
You have decided that the ACFID Code
of Conduct committee of which you are all members, has no jurisdiction to (a) conduct an Inquiry and, by implication,
(b) investigate the Complaint made by Chanti and Chhork on 22nd
April 2014. The reason: because Citipointe church’s ‘SHE Rescue Home’ is not a
member of ACFID. The italics are mine.
I would like to draw the
committee’s attention to 2 sections within the Code of Conduct:
(1)
B.2.2 Clarity in roles
and responsibilities
In work undertaken with
partner organisations, signatory organisations will ensure mutual clarity and
agreement about the objectives of the partnership and the respective roles,
responsibilities and mutual accountability mechanisms.
Obligation:
Signatory organisations will work towards having a
written agreement with each
of their partners which sets out the agreed objectives of the
collaborative aid and development activity and the roles, responsibilities and
obligations of each party.
In
their communications with stakeholders, signatory organisations will
appropriately reference the role of their partners in delivering aid and
development activities.
The Global Development Group (a signatory
organization) has a duty to ensure ‘clarity and agreement’ from Citipointe
church (a ‘partner organization’) regarding, amongst other things, ‘mutual
accountability mechanisms.’ For the purposes of the ACFID Code of Conduct (and
hence your committee), Citipointe church and the Global Development Group are
as one – in a partnership.
This proposition is supported by what is
written on the Citipointe church website:
“Global Development Group takes
responsibility of the project according to AusAID rules providing a governance
role and assisting in the areas of planning, monitoring, evaluating and auditing
to ensure the projects are carried out to AusAID requirements.”
So, a written agreement must
exist between GDG and Citipointe vis a vis the “SHE Rescue Home’; an agreement
that makes reference to ‘planning’ and ‘monitoring – both of which must be
carried out in accordance with ‘AusAID requirement.’
Has the ACFID Code of Conduct
committee asked the Global Development Group for a copy of this agreement? Has
a copy of this agreement been provided to two key stakeholders – namely, Chanti
and Chhork?
I imagine that a clever Spin
Doctor or lawyer might find a way of absolving the Global Development Group of
any responsibility for the way in which the ‘SHE Rescue Home’ spends the
AusAID-approved funds provided to Citipointe church, but I doubt that it would
convince anyone other, it seems than the board of which you are members.
(2)
B.2.3 Control of funds
and resources
Signatory organisations will make every reasonable
effort to ensure that funds or resources disbursed to partners or third parties
are applied lawfully, in
accordance with the promise to the donor, for a proper purpose and with proper
controls
and risk management in place. (Australian Government legislative
requirement).
Obligation:
1. A signatory organisation will only
disburse donated funds or resources to a third party (including affiliates or
partner agencies) for aid and development activities where it is satisfied
that:
The activity
is consistent with the explicit or implicit promise to the donor;
The funds or resources will be disbursed in
accordance with relevant laws including taxation, counter terrorism
financing and anti-money laundering legislation; and
Appropriate
control and risk management mechanisms are in place to mitigate the risk of
misappropriation or improper use of the
funds or resources once disbursed.
Has the Global
Development Group, in the opinion of your committee, taken ‘every reasonable
effort’ to ensure that the ‘SHE Rescue Home’ (a) acts in accordance with Cambodian
and Australian law, (b) carries out its aid work in accordance with promises
the NGO has made to GDG and that the Global Development Group lived up to its
responsibility (to AusAID) to see to it that (c) that funds are not ‘improperly
used.
It is not possible for
your committee to have a valid opinion on these questions for as long as you
refuse to ask the Global Development Group to provide copies of (a) the 2008
and 2009 MOUs and whatever court documents GDG has in its possession relating
to the legal transfer of ‘authority’ of Rosa and Chita from Chanti and Chhok to
Citipointe’s ‘SHE Rescue Home’.
Your committee’s refusal
to ask for the MOUs is extraordinary, to say the least! In trying to absolve he
Global Development Group of any responsibility for the actions of its
‘partner’, the ‘SHE Rescue Home’, you are, individually and collectively, in
breach of your own guidelines.
But let’s leave the Code
of Conduct guidelines to one side, for the moment, and apply common sense. If, under the
circumstances that prevail here, the Global Development Group can provide
funding to any non-ACFID member and be absolved of any responsibility for how
that NGO behaves, the door is left wide open for corruption on a massive scale.
What is there to prevent GDG (or any other similarly cashed up AusAID approved
NGO) going into partnership with an NGO (to use some extreme examples) that is
a front for a terrorist organization, a pedophile ring, money-laundering mafia?
Let’s
say that a cashed-up NGO like GDG is providing financial assistance to an
‘orphanage’ that is providing children to rich western pedophiles? (Such
‘orphanages’ do exist). Does the ACFID Code of Conduct committee have any way
of identifying a problem as serious as this – where an ‘umbrella’ NGO such as
GDG is funding an NGO that is breaking the law of the country in which it is
based, AusAID rules, the ACFID Code of Conduct and a whole raft of human rights
obligations?
If
a ‘stakeholder’ were to lodge a complaint with ACFID about this ‘orphanage’,
would the AusAID approved GDG-like NGO be able to offer up, as a defense, “How
this orphanage spends its money is none of our concern.” Would your Code of
Conduct committee deal with a complaint from a stakeholder by declaring that it
could not investigate because the ‘orphanage’ was not a signatory to the ACFID
Code of Conduct? And if the parents of one of the ‘orphans’ were to complain
that s/he had been sexually abused by foreign men that visited the ‘orphanage’
(funded by an AusAID approved NGO), would your Code of Conduct committees response
be to suggest that the parents file a complaint with the local authorities?
Would that be the full extent of the ACFID Code of Conduct’s oversight? You
would not seek, as a matter of urgency, to conduct your own investigation? An
investigation that would involve interviewers skilled in child protection
matters talking with the ‘orphans’ and the staff of the NGO? It would seem, on
the basis of Dr Sue-Anne Wallace’s letter of 4th May, that no
investigation would take place; that your committee would be happy to accept
the word of ‘local authorities’. If this be the case, it reveals a remarkable
level of naivete on the part of your committee. You cannot, surely, be unaware
that corruption is rife in Cambodia and, of course, in many other 3rd
world countries.
I
wonder if the committee of which you are a part will have the courtesy (both
professional and personal) to write to Chanti and Chhork, as you have to me, to
explain to them, in language they would understand, why it is that ACFID can
play no role in investigating the legal and human rights abuses they and their
daughters have experienced at the hands of the ‘SHE Rescue Home’ and its
funding partner, the Global Development Group?
best
wishes
James Ricketson
cc The Hon Julie Bishop, Minister for
Foreign Affairs
Ms Alison Burrow, Australia’s
Ambassador to Cambodia
Pastors Leigh Ramsey and Brian
Mulheran
Geoff Armstrong and the Global
Development Group board
Various media outlets
Dear Mr Ricketson,
I refer to your letter date 30 April
2014 and its enclosure addressed to myself and members of the ACFID Code of
Conduct Committee.
I have considered The matter you have
raised. After consultation with other members of the Committee it has been
determined that it is beyond the jurisdiction of the Code Committee. Here it is
noted that Citipointe Church is not an ACFID member and that issues relating to
legal custody of children are more appropriately dealt with by the Cambodian
legal system where the children reside.
Finally, I note that the ACFID Code
of Conduct complaints process is a confidential one based on the good faith of
all the parties. For the record I note here that I am aware of your regular
posts on a personal internet blog about this matter and a report in the
Cambodian Daily dated 4 April 2014. The latter refers to unlawful activity by
you in relation to this matter,
Yours faithfully,
Dr Sue-Anne Wallace
Chair, Code of Conduct Committee
No comments:
Post a Comment