The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into Orphan Relief Fund and Charitable Trust after discovering that it had made unexplained payments to a trustee and has applied funds to activities outside of its objectives.
Orphan’s Relief Fund and Charitable Trust was founded in 1983 by Dr Wathib Al-Amood, who is also listed as the charity’s chair. Two people with the same surname are also trustees.
Its objectives are to provide education and other support to people under 21 who have lost a parent. It operates in a number of countries including Iraq, Pakistan and Somalia. The charity runs a number of orphanages.
According to information listed on the Commission’s register of charities it has five trustees, one employee and two volunteers.
For the financial year ending July 2016, the charity had an income of £539,000, all of which came from donations and legacies. It spent £568,000 on charitable activities and £2,700 on raising funds.
The Commission said that it identified the charity for a compliance visit because of its “work in high-risk areas” and became concerned that trustees did not have records of “a significant amount of overseas expenditure in Iraq between 2013 and 2017”.
It also said that the charity has “applied funds that fall outside of its objects” and that “a number of payments had been made to one of the charity’s trustees without explanation”.
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