Two people who started fundraising pages to support Rohingya refugees have been disqualified for “misconduct” by the Charity Commission.
Nearly £200,000 that they raised has now been given to other charities after the regulator conducted an investigation.
Mohammed Hasnath and Ms Ruksana Ali set up fundraising pages on GoFundMe and You Caring and solicited donations to provide aid to the Rohingya minority in Myanmar and Bangladesh, but did not register as a charity, or set up a dedicated bank account for the fund.
The regulator opened a statutory inquiry in 2018 and has published its findings this week. Both trustees have been disqualified from being a trustee or senior manager in the future after the Commission concluded that “there had been misconduct and/or mismanagement”.
They are thought to have raised over £200,000. However, they did not register the fund as a charity, despite being over the minimum income threshold to do so, and had no governance or financial controls in place, the Commission said.
Money transferred to six personal accounts
The inquiry found that the money donated to the fund was transferred into six personal bank accounts and a PayPal account. The Commission said using one personal account as a temporary solution would have been acceptable, but that by using many it made it difficult to track how money had been used.
Some £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”, the Commission concluded.
The inquiry also said it could not be certain that any charitable activity had taken place.
“Trustees told the inquiry that £115,344.92 had been expended on charitable activities, this sum included internal transfers between the trustees’ bank accounts which the Commission does not consider to be charitable expenditure, and the trustees did not provide adequate evidence (such as receipts) to substantiate any of the charitable expenditure,” the report says.
The Commission has transferred £196,528.58 raised by the fund to two registered charities that support Rohingya refugees.
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.”
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