The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry and frozen the bank accounts of a charity which provides educational support in the Caribbean.
Grove Mountain is based in London and provides books to schools in the Carribean. The regulator said a third party reported concerns about the charity’s financial controls and that it had examined its accounts for the year ending 1 April 2016.
It said the majority of the charitys’ income was withdrawn in cash and that “there was a pattern of large cash withdrawals being made shortly after donations or identical amounts had been deposited”.
Grove Mountain has been operating since 2015 and has filed one set of accounts, which are listed as having qualified by its independent examiner.
Income was £88,000 and spending also £88,000. Its accounts say that it raises money from donation boxes in London and plans to recruit regular givers.
The independent examiner’s report states “Grove Mountain could only produce account transactions from 1 April 2016 onwards because it was initially set up as a limited company. However their account was terminated by the bank due to late submission of vital documents and in the process all transactions before 1 April cannot be retrieved unfortunately.
“There is only access to transactions that the company has filed as a registered charity and not as a limited company.”
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