Boss of fraud scandal charity bankrolled by £132million in British aid sent ‘witch porn’ to female worker

Published by The Mail on Sunday (27th January, 2019)

A major UK charity has failed to remove from office a senior director accused of bullying whistleblowers, corruption and sexual harassment – including sending ‘witch porn’ to a female executive.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), a family planning group employing 30,000 staff and heavily backed by British aid, kept the head of its Africa operations despite being warned six years ago by the Kenyan government of ‘serious allegations’ against him and other officials.

Regional director Lucien Kouakou was subsequently at the centre of a scandal over fraud, sexual harassment and abuse of staff. 

Yet he has not been ousted after the IPPF’s African regional executive accused the London-based charity of ‘an attack of the whole African region’.

And the department for international development (Dfid) has given the group £132million for a three-year project, despite pledges to stop funding organisations guilty of exploitation.

‘The whole system at the organisation is riddled with opportunities for corruption but there is simply no willpower to tackle it,’ said one former insider. 

Documents seen by The Mail on Sunday show:

• Senior IPPF officials accused of taking tens of thousands of pounds in expenses for attending ‘partner meetings’ that never took place in Senegal, Ivory Coast and Togo;
• One senior manager, later sacked, took $120,000 (£91,000) and $121,900 (£92,400) in cash for expenses at two of the meetings;
• Rampant fraud such as spending $22,620 (£17,000) for translation services from a fake firm in Senegal and $20,600 (£15,600) on fees for non-existent schools in Ghana;
• Concerns of ‘malpractice’ surrounding the $1.37million (£1.04million) purchase of less than an acre of ‘swampland’ in Kenya;
• Mr Kouakou kept his job despite being found to have bullied whistleblowers and claims he tried to cover up corruption;
• Allegations he sent a ‘witch porn’ video featuring a snake and naked woman to a senior female staff member to intimidate her.

The furore is a blow to one of Britain’s most influential aid charities, founded 67 years ago to fight for women’s rights, and the latest setback for a sector that has seen some of its best-known names damaged by a spate of scandals.

Well-placed sources handed the MoS leaked documents including emails, invoices and reports along with audio tapes of meetings and video footage. 

One IPPF insider also claimed there are current investigations into alleged frauds and mismanagement involving associations in Liberia, Malawi and Burkina Faso.

Many concerns revolve around Mr Kouakou, who was appointed in 2008 to head the IPPF’s African region. He describes himself on social media as ‘a distinguished and visionary leader’. 

Yet in April 2013 Kenya’s foreign ministry sent a letter of complaint to IPPF, saying its staff had raised claims of ‘discrimination, use of rude and abusive language, intimidation and…sexual harassment of women employees’ by Mr Kouakou and ‘other senior officials’ in the charity.

It is not known how the group responded although Mr Kouakou kept his job. His salary is unknown, but one of his fellow regional directors pocketed $380,447 (£288,200) in 2017.

In July 2017 Inacio Neves, a senior IPPF finance adviser, wrote a detailed memo called ‘Suspicious Misappropriation of Funds at IPPF Africa Region Office’ in conjunction with colleagues. 

It was sent to executives in London and Nairobi. Neves wrote that he had been ‘quietly’ probing fraud by ‘senior managers’ involving ‘ghost meetings’, faked invoices, abuse of expenses and a ‘secretive and deficient procurement process’ for the purchase of 0.73 acres of land in Nairobi.

Subsequent memos by Neves and another colleague claimed Kouakou attempted to cover up fraud by his head of operations. ‘He has sought to argue that what took place was a mere mistake,’ they told the head of human resources.

They also said they were threatened by Mr Kouakou. This was confirmed in May last year by the ‘strictly confidential investigation report’ of an external probe commissioned by the charity. It concluded the pair were ‘subjected to behaviour which is workplace bullying by Mr Kouakou and which only arose after they blew the whistle’.

Allegations of fraud were confirmed, leading to dismissal of the head of operations, although Mr Kouakou remained in post. He later stepped aside during another investigation by a Kenyan law firm.

An email to staff on October 18 last year from Alvaro Bermejo, the British-based director general, said that after an ‘entirely independent and very thorough’ probe by the law firm Mr Kouakou was returning to his job. This led to fury from four senior ex-staff who said they had resigned since they could no longer tolerate ‘harassment’, ‘bullying’, and ‘financial impropriety’.

The ex-staff said the office was not ‘a safe space for staff’, enclosing a ‘witch porn’ video clip said to have been sent to a woman official.

On November 27 last year Mr Bermejo sent staff another email saying Mr Kouakou ‘has left IPPF today’ after a disciplinary process following ‘new information concerning management controls and oversight in connection with this fraud.’ 

Yet another memo was sent to staff earlier this month, saying that following Mr Kouakou’s ‘termination’ an appeal had led to new hearings ‘and during this process Lucien will be placed on suspension’.

An earlier meeting of the regional executive committee had pledged support for Mr Kouakou, saying the allegations against him were ‘not an attack of an individual but of the whole African region.’

A spokesman for IPPF said they had ‘a zero-tolerance policy on fraud, investigate all allegations and comply with all obligations to contact donors and our regulator’.

He added the charity was committed to safeguarding staff.

Dfid said it learned about the allegations of fraud in August last year and had since been kept up to date with IPPF investigations. A departmental source said they had halted the contract award when alerted to the case but found IPPF controls ‘were sufficiently robust to justify continued funding’.

Mr Kouakou did not respond to requests to discuss the claims.

Categorised in: Africa, Aid & development, home page, Kenya