The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into a poverty relief and education charity to look into concerns about “potential misconduct and mismanagement”.
The regulator opened its inquiry into The Mohiuddin Trust on 5 December 2018, having written to the charity back in the summer of 2017, following a review of its accounts for the year which “identified statements in its auditor’s report which indicated a financial risk to the charity”.
The Commission wrote to the charity to organise a meeting, whereupon it “soon became apparent that there was an ongoing internal dispute between competing parties claiming to be the charity’s trustees” and it was “unclear whether the charity had any validly appointed trustees”.
The regulator advised the competing parties to “mediate or engage in dispute resolution with each other” to address the dispute, but this process was not done “satisfactorily” and the Commission has said “that the dispute is now impacting upon the day-to-day running of the charity” and that it has seen evidence of “mismanagement by those in control of the charity”.
The statutory inquiry will be investigating the ongoing dispute and “how to regularise the concern that the charity has no validly appointed trustees”; whether those in control of the organisation have “properly exercised their legal duties and responsibilities” under charity law; whether there has been “misconduct and/or mismanagement by those in control of the charity” and the financial management of the charity in general.
The Mohiuddin Trust has previously been investigated by the Charity Commission . In 2010 there were allegations that a trustee of the organisation had “misappropriated a substantial sum of charity money and was personally benefitting from charitable funds”.
The Commission's inquiry found serious breaches had taken place and trustees were provided with regulatory advice.
The charity has been contacted for a comment.
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