More corruption at the British Council

Here are some choice quotes from the linked article:

“Investigators will dig out how the British Council officials, in alleged connivance with the British High Commission (BHC) officials, were sending applicants to the UK on fake visa letters”.

“Internal investigations are being conducted by the British Council officials against the accused officials,” said British Council Pakistan Director Communication Fasi Zaka. “Only Rafi was involved in human trafficking case,” he clarified. “The British Council officials who were involved in the scam have already been dismissed from service,” Zaka said.

Just re-read that “clarification” from the BC's local propaganda manager. Firstly he is trying to pin it on somebody called Rafi, but at the same time knowing he cannot limit the damage he explains that the other officials involved in the scam have been dismissed. The British Council "Chief Executive" Martin Davidson is also trying to peddle the "one rogue employee" line while the Pakistani press says in contrast that multiple employees are involved. The panicky statement goes a long way to explaining why British Council officials all over the world are effectively above the law: they know that because the British Council hates a scandal the worst that can happen to them if, as a result of an internal (for heaven’s sake) investigation, they are caught with their fingers in the till, is dismissal. When it comes to corruption – whether involving giving free classes to the mates of a despot, giving scholarships to the mates of the scholarships manager, IELTS results scams, human trafficking or just common or garden embezzlement – the BC employee knows he or she has a favourite’s chance of getting away with it.

And the BBC might like to note that the alleged "human trafficking" reported here has been managed under the banner and guise of the "Connecting Classrooms" programme which our state broadcaster has been advertising so persistently in recent months. You can't have missed it.

Just as the British Council have already failed to pin this incident on one man, so now the police and UKBA should be investigating how far the scam extends, and not just in Pakistan. The incompetent BC’s cosy relationship with government departments could well mean that the Karachi model is reproduced all over the world.

 

Comments

[Neil Robertson]

Scandalous too that the BBC has been giving peak time plugs to British Council's 'World Class' (sic) Connecting Classrooms programme on BBC News channels since the middle of last year in apparent defiance of rules forbidding advertising or promotion of particular so-called 'charities' on the BBC and also without carrying British Council's charity numbers on their plugs as is required for example under the (statutory) 'Charities Documents (Scotland) Regulations'. And these 'chalk board trails' pop up with irritating frequency as well! http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-connecting-classrooms-partnership-stories.htm

[Neil Robertson]

Davidson's statement also claims that they are working now to 'tighten their processes' - but British Council's website suggests that these were relaxed in July 2011? " *Update, July 2011: Please note that for the current application round for schools in the UK we are piloting a new approach to the management and development of Connecting Classrooms partnerships, in which we are no longer asking for a local authority, federation or other organisation to support or co-ordinate clusters of schools in the UK. This practice still applies to all Connecting Classrooms partnerships that are already operating."

[Neil Robertson]

Follow 'the chalk board trail' to these irritating BBC News channel daily plugs for British Council 'World Class': http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldclass/15403070

[David]

I think we agree that the BBC have absolutely no business to advertise the products of a commercial organisation, and are foolish to ally themselves so closely with this one when it has such a record of incompetence and corruption.

[Neil Robertson]

Absolutely, David! But someone also needs to tell that to BBC News Channel stalwart /former British Council Trustee Zeinab Badawi (seen here next to a BC logo on the BBC promoting their 'pontifications' about Europe): http://blog.britishcouncil.org/2010/02/europe-is-failing-its-muslims-the-live-debate

[Neil Robertson]

Have also just noticed that the hapless British Council Director in Pakistan is David Martin who having failed to spot or stop the irregularities I reported in Palestine in 2000 involving 'rogue' British Council employees Emma Sky and Mike Hardy and a 'non-existent' £1.9 million UK DfID-financed 'PAID' project ['Public Admin Institutional Development' project (sic)] asked for my 'co-operation' in covering up this British Council DATS scandal revealed going on under his nose when he was British Council Director in their East Jerusalem office covering West Bank and Gaza.

More than a bit embarrassing too I suggest that in 2011 before this Pakistani 'Connecting Classrooms' fraud scandal broke it was being singled out for the attention of Prime Minister David Cameron when he visited The British Council in Pakistan in April:

" نیا آغاز
The words in Urdu script above translate as ‘fresh start’.

This was the phrase used by David Cameron (spoken in what he described as his ‘atrocious Urdu’) to characterise the approach for a new phase for the UK-Pakistan relationship during his first visit to Pakistan as Prime Minister last week.

If 5 April 2011 is typical of the way in which Number 10 Downing Street makes the PM work, I’m impressed.

In 15 hours, from ‘wheels down’ to ‘wheels up’, the PM and his delegation were constantly busy. Hard politics (defence and security) as well as less contentious subjects such as trade, health and education, were all on the agenda.

The motorcade was rarely idling for long as the PM’s party raced round Islamabad’s tree-lined streets.

From the early planning meetings for the visit, to which David Martin, Director British Council Pakistan and I were invited, it was clear that education was likely to be a key part of the soft diplomacy side of the packed programme.

The Department for International Development is doubling its aid programme in Pakistan over the next five years. Getting four million of the 17 million children who don’t go to school into the classroom is one of that programme’s aims.

With our large network of Connecting Classrooms schools, we were asked to find a suitable government school for the PM to visit so he could see for himself something of the country’s education system and meet students.

I’m not sure Islamabad College for Girls, with its 5,000 students, realised just what disruption they would have to face once they had agreed to host a visit.

We weren’t able to tell them until the last minute who the visitor was, although they must have guessed it was somebody important as scores of security personnel scoured their premises during the preceding weekend.

The school principal, and her student council, proved to be wonderful hosts. They spoke proudly to the PM and Baroness Warsi, the Chair of the Conservative Party, a more frequent visitor to Pakistan because of her family ties, of the school’s interaction with Kirklees in West Yorkshire, thanks to Connecting Classrooms.

They needed no encouragement to say how important such relationships with teachers and students from the UK are in promoting global citizenship, and asked the PM to continue to support this kind of work.

‘The links between our countries go deep,’ said the PM during his speech to university students.

As he said this I reflected on the threats to those links – extremism, intolerance and low levels of trust amongst them – and of the role we at the British Council must play in constant renewal of cross-cultural relationships.

It made me realise that we have the potential to achieve hundreds of thousands, if not more, people to people ‘fresh starts’ in the UK-Pakistan relationship, if we can find ways of building on successful programmes such as Connecting Classrooms.'

[ From blog by Martin Fryer, the British Council's Director of Programmes, Pakistan on BC website]

[Neil Robertson]

http://blog.britishcouncil.org/2011/04/pakistan-a-fresh-start/