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British Council: Fraud

Answer

Incidents of theft or fraud are rare across the British Council's global operations. Over the last three years, the British Council's Africa operations suffered losses from theft, fraud and other misappropriations of approximately £248,000 (out of a total regional income for sub-Saharan Africa of around £124 million). Three individual incidents accounted for £230,000:Sierra Leone—£182,000:"An investigation established that, dating back to April 2005, a number of fraudulent transactions had been made by staff and bookkeeping exchange rates has been manipulated. 10 locally appointed staff were dismissed and the Country Director recalled to the UK. The British Council is following due legal process in order to recover the losses in full."Nigeria—£29,000:"Resulting from the theft of a vehicle stolen at gunpoint from the British Council staff workers. During the incident the driver was shot. The theft was reported to the Chief Security Police Officer at the BDHC, Lagos."Morocco—£19,000:"British Council's internal procedures identified a fraud in country in 2005. The responsible staff member resigned. Procedures were changed to mitigate risk of recurrences."The remaining eight incidents of fraud total £18,000 over three years, comprising five internal and three external cases. The internal frauds involved the theft of cash. The external frauds comprised two cash thefts and the use of a counterfeit cheque.As well as implementing lessons learnt from individual cases, the British Council has been introducing a new global finance and business system, which significantly strengthens financial controls and fraud prevention and detection capabilities.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

483 c1748-9W; 230864

Session

2007-08

Subjects

Africa Fraud British Council

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk