2021 Corruption case: Malawi
December 2021
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 we did:
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 we learned:
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.