It is worth recording that we deviated from the norm when it came to supplying funds to Hifadhi (the name I have allocated to Big E's NGO). The Agency require volunteers to have a strict code of conduct - in all matters actually - particularly to empower partner organisations in development.
Hifadhi had been given considerable sums of money to carry out projects and to support me, the volunteer within the designated project(s). However, those funds had not been used as was intended and further funding was unlikely to be forthcoming.
I could easily write this up damning Hifadhi and it is easy to accuse the NGO or it's leaders of corruption. And from our point of view we were none too happy with the situation and certainly I was frustrated in my dealings with Big E and Round L.
What happened? Well Hifadhi wrote up proposals for several water projects in various villages, and as well some environmental programmes the I was to help with. What the did was to inflate the likely cost. Hang on. There was rampant inflation during those times and the time delay for approval of projects was long. So the price was inflated - probably overly.
Once money comes to hand, the projects are carried out in the cheapest possible way. In these cases too cheap for my liking. However, this is standard for any estimate I have ever made - price on the high side and then carry out the job as efficiently as possible. In my case, when I make savings, I put the funds to other projects/assistance. Big E did not do that.
Hifadhi built a Bar/Restaurant on the Sanawari road. Big E was always interested in entertainment & culture and Naabi Hills Bar was supposed to do that. Now this was not in any of the planned projects - well it may have been his plan - but he did not do it secretly and was quite open.
His reason was that if the Hifadhi was to become a sustainable NGO, it must has some form of income generation. The funds provided would allow him to make this investment. Though the Agency was not happy about it and Big E covered his tracks just enough.
Later I challenged him about all this, and the outcome is that we remain friends.
From his point of view though, many NGO's receiving funds do similar things and I have some tales to tell later, but he honestly though this was totally allowable I was the only one to find out what was going on. One missionary told me that about 10% of funds are used appropriately. That may be so and I found that people coming to seminars expected to be fed and benefit in some way. For our projects we changed this attitude, but for now I had to deal with Big E and Round L.
It is a fact that Big E was seeking funding to build car washing bays - as a sustainable project to raise income and to protect the rivers. I did not support him in this, believing the plan to be flawed because while the need was there, the likelihood of people using was not. I was very wrong and there are many successful car washing bays operating today.
So we found out that there were no funds to run our project. Hifadhi was behind on all the project it was supposed to do. What little that was being done actually came out of Big E's pocket - I know because I took over the books!
So as I have said elsewhere, we were successful in securing funding to run our project, but the proviso was that we were to administer the funds. Now Big E could have made life difficult for me because of this, but he did not. From time to time he asked for financial assistance and took my refusal philosophically. So Josiah and I ran the projects with the moral support of Big E and Round L. They were happy enough to receive the kudos.
The other proviso was that Hifadhi's other projects be completed asap and I had to be responsible for them. This meant working with Big E and we gradually made headway as I will report later.
Then there came the Primary Schools Assistance Projects. We were allocated funding for 5 schools but this blew out to eleven as other vols did not want their allocation.
Again Hifadhi took kudos for this project but we were responsible for the allocation of the schools, the type of assistance given and the organisation of the distribution. We made it an Agency project by stamping text books. The schools identified the desks in their own way.
This was going to make us very busy doing work that I thoroughly enjoyed - the very big thing was though, the parent greatly appreciated the assistance given to the schools and therefore supported our environmental projects with them feeding us on our visits and requiring only our teaching and the trees we supplied.
We were set up well with our project and all parties were mostly happy.
Hifadhi had been given considerable sums of money to carry out projects and to support me, the volunteer within the designated project(s). However, those funds had not been used as was intended and further funding was unlikely to be forthcoming.
I could easily write this up damning Hifadhi and it is easy to accuse the NGO or it's leaders of corruption. And from our point of view we were none too happy with the situation and certainly I was frustrated in my dealings with Big E and Round L.
What happened? Well Hifadhi wrote up proposals for several water projects in various villages, and as well some environmental programmes the I was to help with. What the did was to inflate the likely cost. Hang on. There was rampant inflation during those times and the time delay for approval of projects was long. So the price was inflated - probably overly.
Once money comes to hand, the projects are carried out in the cheapest possible way. In these cases too cheap for my liking. However, this is standard for any estimate I have ever made - price on the high side and then carry out the job as efficiently as possible. In my case, when I make savings, I put the funds to other projects/assistance. Big E did not do that.
Hifadhi built a Bar/Restaurant on the Sanawari road. Big E was always interested in entertainment & culture and Naabi Hills Bar was supposed to do that. Now this was not in any of the planned projects - well it may have been his plan - but he did not do it secretly and was quite open.
His reason was that if the Hifadhi was to become a sustainable NGO, it must has some form of income generation. The funds provided would allow him to make this investment. Though the Agency was not happy about it and Big E covered his tracks just enough.
Later I challenged him about all this, and the outcome is that we remain friends.
From his point of view though, many NGO's receiving funds do similar things and I have some tales to tell later, but he honestly though this was totally allowable I was the only one to find out what was going on. One missionary told me that about 10% of funds are used appropriately. That may be so and I found that people coming to seminars expected to be fed and benefit in some way. For our projects we changed this attitude, but for now I had to deal with Big E and Round L.
It is a fact that Big E was seeking funding to build car washing bays - as a sustainable project to raise income and to protect the rivers. I did not support him in this, believing the plan to be flawed because while the need was there, the likelihood of people using was not. I was very wrong and there are many successful car washing bays operating today.
So we found out that there were no funds to run our project. Hifadhi was behind on all the project it was supposed to do. What little that was being done actually came out of Big E's pocket - I know because I took over the books!
So as I have said elsewhere, we were successful in securing funding to run our project, but the proviso was that we were to administer the funds. Now Big E could have made life difficult for me because of this, but he did not. From time to time he asked for financial assistance and took my refusal philosophically. So Josiah and I ran the projects with the moral support of Big E and Round L. They were happy enough to receive the kudos.
The other proviso was that Hifadhi's other projects be completed asap and I had to be responsible for them. This meant working with Big E and we gradually made headway as I will report later.
Then there came the Primary Schools Assistance Projects. We were allocated funding for 5 schools but this blew out to eleven as other vols did not want their allocation.
Again Hifadhi took kudos for this project but we were responsible for the allocation of the schools, the type of assistance given and the organisation of the distribution. We made it an Agency project by stamping text books. The schools identified the desks in their own way.
This was going to make us very busy doing work that I thoroughly enjoyed - the very big thing was though, the parent greatly appreciated the assistance given to the schools and therefore supported our environmental projects with them feeding us on our visits and requiring only our teaching and the trees we supplied.
We were set up well with our project and all parties were mostly happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment