Boitumelo Koloi and Limpho Sello
MASERU — The Campaign for Education Forum (CEF) is under the anti-corruption unit’s spotlight for allegedly misappropriating close to a million maloti of public funds in the build-up to the 2012 general elections, the Sunday Express heard.
According to sources privy to the matter, staffers of the CEF had been questioned by the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO) after it emerged that there could be practices considered untoward in the organisation’s roll out of the project funded by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).
The project, whose mandate was to sensitise students in tertiary institutions about the elections and the need to participate in the poll, was bankrolled by the IEC to the tune of about M894 000.
Now it has emerged that there are suspicions the funds could have been misused.
This paper has since learnt that towards the end of last year, persons suspected of having had a stake in the alleged embezzlement of the funds had been called in by the anti-corruption unit interchangeably.
One of them, a former part-time employee of the organisation, said he had been interrogated about his part in the organisation’s operations during the 2012 elections campaign.
“I was questioned extensively about the association’s daily operations during the rollout of the voter-education project,” he said.
CEF is coalition of civil society organisations with an active interest in education issues.
It has a membership base of about 50 organisations throughout the country, including faith-based and teachers’ associations.
According to another well-placed source within the organisation, although the probe by the DCEO largely relates to maladministration of funds, such irregularities as nepotism and impersonation were also being probed.
It is alleged that some of the companies said to have supplied services to the organisation “in actual fact belonged to someone within the management”.
This paper has since learnt that this was not the first time that the same project had been scrutinised by the anti-corruption body.
Apparently in the first instance soon after the 2012 general elections, officers of the DCEO had gone as far as confiscating files and computers of the organisation in their search of the suspected irregularities.
President of the CEF board, Paul Sematlane, confirmed the previous incident saying that indeed there had been “attempts by DCEO to investigate alleged acts of fraud by us during the voter-education project financed by the IEC”.
“At the time the alleged charges were baseless attempts by estranged persons who claimed to have been employees of the CEF secretariat but that never really took off,” Sematlane said.
He refuted claims that CEF was under fresh investigation.
“At the moment we are more stable than ever; there is no such a thing,” he said.
Sematlane said as a matter of fact the IEC had more confidence in CEF’s reputation “because we have even attained another deal to be involved in the up-coming by-elections”.
“If we were being investigated, why would they entrust us with the taxpayer’s money again?” he quipped.
Meanwhile, CEF’s National Coordinator, Kholu Tšumane, was not clear about whether or not they were being investigated.
“I am not in a position to say that we are being investigated, I am not aware of such,” Tšumane said over the phone before she hung up.
However authoritative sources within the DCEO confirmed that indeed there was a case involving CEF before the DCEO.
Meanwhile, DCEO’s public relations officer, ‘Matlhokomelo Senoko could also not be brought to say whether or not CEF was being investigated.
“I cannot confirm or refute the claims,” Senoko said.
She said as a matter of practice, any cases currently being investigated by DCEO were treated as confidential until their appearance in court when the investigations are complete.