A closed hearing Tuesday on allegations concerning the former director of the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections did not include at least one of the donors whose money was allegedly misspent.
Michael Barton, who works for the Canadian International Development Agency’s Civil Society Fund, did not attend the meeting at which donors and Coffel board members discussed allegations that former Coffel director Sek Sophal misused donors’ funds and verbally abused his staff.
Barton said his organization reviewed the Coffel budget and could not find anything to verify the allegations. He said CIDA had no plans to investigate further.
“In terms of use of our funds, we couldn’t find misuse,” Barton said. “We have closed our file.” He said he did not have authority to say how much money CIDA gave to Coffel.
Sek Sophal complained Tuesday that he was not invited to the meeting held at the offices of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. He said he has not seen a copy of the draft audit.
“Nobody invited me to go to the meeting,” he said. “[Coffel] is always concerned about democracy and human rights, but they do not practice democracy.”
Sek Sophal said he continues to work for Coffel, but has not been paid his $1,100 monthly salary for the last two months. He was suspended in December after the allegations surfaced.
Chea Vannath, the former president of the Coffel board and one of the people who attended Tuesday’s meeting, said it’s still not clear what will happen next.
“When we discuss any further investigation it seems like it is not worth it to do it,” she said, adding that the amount of money in question is fairly small.
There were concerns that $6,000 may have been incorrectly budgeted, but it was not clear that the money had been intentionally misspent.
Current Coffel board President Ung Yok Khoan said she was going to wait before making any further comments. She said she had arrived in Phnom Penh Tuesday morning and had not yet had time to speak to many people about the audit.
