This article recounts, as a lesson-learning exercise, a chain of events that played out in the 1990s — financial misconduct occurred, allegations were made about it, the response was weak, audits were launched, followed by a TV exposé, and finally a sector code of conduct was adopted.
It is written from my perspective as an NGO employee and then reluctant whistleblower. A longer report published today by the Development Policy Centre provides a more detailed account.
The key player in this story — CARE Australia — is now a respected and trusted NGO. It would be wrong for these reflections to be used against today’s CARE Australia. But there are certainly lessons in this story for today’s aid sector.
In 1989 I accepted a job offer from CARE Australia. I started in June 1989 and lasted 19 months. After becoming a whistleblower in January 1991 I couldn’t get work in Australia with another NGO and went back overseas.
CARE Australia was established in 1987 and from the outset a substantial proportion of the funds raised as grants and donations was used to cover its own costs. Whether CARE’s leadership wanted to recognise it or not, this involved — as I saw it then and still see it — fraud on the Commonwealth and a breach of trust with the public. I came to understand that from its inception CARE’s leadership had been massaging grant budgets and acquittals to generate surpluses to help pay for overheads.
Things came to a head in mid-1990 on a monitoring mission to Africa when I...
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