December 2021 – Malawi
What happened: During the consolidation of the financial reports from all the local partner’s financial reports, NCA noticed a suspicious transaction which upon closer look turned out to be false.
What did we do: Based on this initial case of financial mismanagement, the Embassy in Malawi and MFA in Oslo were alerted. NCA furthermore suspended the partner and initiated an external full-scale investigation. As the investigation proceeded it became very clear that this was a large case of financial mismanagement. The conclusion of the investigation was fraud and funds not used in line with the purpose for the project for the amount of NOK 1 521 270. The amount has been requested repaid from the partner.
What did we learn? We primarily learnt that it is important to act on initial suspicion when going through financial report. In this case, one transaction led to a large series of findings and uncovered serious fraud throughout the partner organisation.