Donors are scheduled to meet today to discuss accusations that the executive director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections, an election-monitoring NGO, misused funds and abused his staff.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers will present a donor-ordered audit of Coffel’s finances to major donors including The Asia Foundation, ForumSYD, Pact and Canada’s CIDA, said Ung Yok Khoan, chair of Coffel’s newly elected board.
Former executive director Sek Sophal was suspended in December pending the investigation’s conclusion, Ung Yok Khoan said. Most of the dozen staff members in the Phnom Penh office worked through the Feb 3 commune elections and were put on leave on March 1.
Four staff members stayed on and prepared a financial report that was submitted to The Asia Foundation Friday, she said.
“We would like to clean up this matter,” Ung Yok Khoan said. “We do not know who is right or who is wrong.”
The board first learned of the problems in December when it received a letter, signed by the entire staff except Sek Sophal, charging the executive director of corruption and verbal abuse of the staff, Ung Yok Khoan said. She said the board was “shocked” by the allegations.
The letter said Sek Sophal shouted at his staff and acted rudely toward them. It also contained claims by three guards that Sek Sophal had made sexual advances towards them at the office, she said.
Sek Sophal, 36, led the Cambodian Volunteer Community Development NGO before he took charge of Coffel in 1998. In an interview Monday, he said he built up the NGO’s budget from virtually nothing to about $300,000 now. Coffel had about 8,000 monitors in 15 provinces for the elections.
Sek Sophal claimed the accusations stemmed from a jealous staff member who wanted the executive director job. He said some money had been used for purposes other than intended because of shifting funding availability by donors, but he denied outright corruption. He said the accusations about his management style were internal matters.
“If you are angry with me, you should tell me, but instead you tell the board and donors,” he said.
He admitted he had been a strict boss in order to ensure his staff stayed neutral and did not do outside work for political parties.
Sek Sophal said he had merely lectured the guards on the dangers of unsafe sex, rather than making advances on them.
The former board president, Chea Vannath of the Center for Social Development, said a draft audit has already circulated. “Based on what the audit said, it is clearly poor management,” she said.
It appeared that about $6,000 was incorrectly budgeted, but was not pocketed by Sek Sophal, Chea Vannath said. But she added there was “no clear picture yet.”
