There is a lot of money in the world that is dedicated to trying to help those who are less fortunate.

What would you do if you were tasked with making a business plan related to a grant of this type, but you discovered that there was a lot of fraud and abuse that was taking place?

That is what happened to the young man in this story, but when she reported what he found, she ended up losing his job.

Check it out.

Assign the incompetent guy the task of making a business plan

Many years ago I was tasked with making a business plan for a women owned and operated business in a rural low income area where English is not spoken.

There was a big grant from outside the country that made this project happen and a country based NGO (non governmental organization) that managed the grant.

This seems like a good way to plan for the future.

The business had been dependent on the grant for years.

The idea was to use the business plan to make the business independent and self sufficient so the grant could then go to a new rural area and begin again with a new business employing new women.

I worked for the NGO administering the grant.

She knows her limitations.

I explained that I was not the best person to do a business plan because:

1. I don’t speak the language.
2. I never owned a business.
3. I don’t have a business degree, nor have I ever taken a business course.
4. I don’t have any experience or knowledge of what a business plan is.

I’m not sure they understand how this works, but ok.

They insisted that none of the above disqualify me from making a business plan for this project.

I should also say that I didn’t have the internet to help me.

The internet was 3 long bus rides away and would require a stay overnight at a hotel where I would use an expensive internet cafe that had viruses and keystroke loggers and charged by the minute. The ’90s.

I certainly don’t blame her for not wanting to do this.

This would all be on my dollar, so I didn’t do it. I didn’t have a car. The town had one phone line with no outlet.

It was just a piece of copper wired to an old phone guarded by the guy who also reads all your mail. Phone calls were expensive.

I imagined that a business plan assessed the efficiency of use of assets and also tracked and categorized all income and expenses. This was the basis for my plan.

They don’t seem to be very helpful.

I started asking questions and I was asked for the finished plan. I explained that it was taking a bit longer than expected because of language barriers, but a description of the grant would help.

I got a pile of unorganized papers. Some of the papers were in English.

This seems very suspicious.

I found out that the grant purchased a truck to collect and deliver raw materials and finished products.

There were no vehicles in the village. A bus came through, but no one owned a vehicle. No one had ever seen a truck.

Also, it said that the grant purchased the building of the business.

However, in talking with the locals many times using redundant terms and phrases to ensure understanding, I learned that the building was rented.

There is definitely some fraud going on.

I met the owner who had no affiliation with the business. They just sat collecting rent money each month.

This was surprising because I had been told by the NGO that the building was owned by the business.

I imagined that somewhere there was someone in the capital city sitting on a fat stash of cash (enough to buy a house) and driving a free truck to their summer house with a pool.

Ahh, they picked her BECAUSE of her incompetence.

It occurred to me that they picked me to make the business plan because I wouldn’t do a thorough job and find these discrepancies.

They also would not expect me to report their embezzlement to the organization doing the embezzlement.

However, that is what I did.

Oh, this is going to make some people very upset.

I told the NGO that self sufficiency would always be a long way off if the business was hampered by rent that was more than collective monthly wages.

I mentioned that selling the truck might help as it appeared to not be used for the purposes listed in the grant.

I sent my business plan in.

The donors are looking for answers.

The country that provided the grant visited. The missing truck mysteriously showed up. The ambassador person was surprised to see me in this rural village (I looked like I was not from there) and they spoke some English.

They asked if I lived there. I said, “yes.”

They asked if I knew what was going on. I said, “yes.”

The NGO person from the capital was there and overheard.

They knew what I knew and also knew that the ambassador would not love to hear about embezzlement even though it is common in low income areas with NGOs.

Wow, they fired her for being honest.

That is when I lost my job. I never told the ambassador that money was misappropriated.

I believed that to do so would result in some consequences (trumped up charges for embarrassing country officials) where I would be at a tremendous disadvantage in country that the ambassador would not be able to help me with.

Also, the fact that the conversation ended there tells me that the ambassador was not at their first rodeo and knew that it was 90% performance.

I think he genuinely wanted to see some good come to the village even if it didn’t meet the level specified in the grant. I think the question about ‘do you know what is going on?’ was merely to see if I saw what he was seeing.

She did the right thing, and she should feel good about it.

I feel proud of what I did because I probably could have turned in a crap business plan and they would have praised me for it, but I did exactly what I was told even though it was difficult and challenging, and for that, “my services were no longer needed.”

I guess I’m missing the part where they face consequences of my compliance, but it felt good to let them know they were not so sly as they thought and I got out of a situation where I could have been partly blamed for corruption had I stayed.

There is so much corruption in the world, especially when it comes to charity type work, unfortunately.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

This commenter says she did everything she could.

Not tolerating corruption is the only way to fight it.

Sadly, this is spot on.

Here is someone who has seen this type of corruption.

This person thinks she handled it well.

When it comes to corruption, there is only so much one person can do.

But you still have to try.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.