Following revelations that the First People of the Kalahari is in the red, it has emerged that proper management of finances is alien to the organisation. This information comes from someone who should know better.
By the account of FPK’s own Roy Sesana, the P400 000 prize money that he and the organisation won in Sweden in 2005 was used up in no time. While part of the expense was legitimate, Sesana reveals that there was also a substantial amount of the prize money frittered away on expenses such as trans-Atlantic lovey-dovey telephone calls. One staffer, he alleges, ran up an astronomical phone bill by continually calling his girlfriend overseas.
Sesana and FPK came into that money after winning the Right Livelihood Award dubbed the Alternative Nobel Prize because it is granted a day before the Nobel Prizes. He travelled to Sweden where he was granted the award in the country’s parliament and also got to make a speech.
He was accompanied by another FPK member, Jumanda Gakelebone, who acted as his interpreter. Upon arrival back home at the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport, the pair was given a heroes welcome by supporters some of whom had travelled from Gantsi where FPK has its headquarters.
The money got here before them, Sesana says, as it was wired from Sweden and deposited into the FPK bank account. Soon thereafter, the organisation was able to settle bills it had incurred in a dry spell. The money was also used to pay outstanding staff salaries.
“Jumanda wanted to be paid gratuity and other staff members took out personal loans which they never paid back,” Sesana says.
On the other hand, Gakelebone’s own recollection is that his gratuity money came from a different source. “The entire prize money was spent on the High Court case and was just a fraction of what we had to spend. The case cost the organisation around P4 million,” he says.
At around the same time, Sesana, by his account, got into a physical altercation with game scouts and other law enforcement officers during which he was badly beaten up. Sesana, whose evocation of what is otherwise powerful imagery is often expressed in comically hyperbolic terms, alleges that he was used as a stage as the officers “did the Zion Christian Church [mokhukhu] dance” on top of him. Mokhukhu is pattern of leaping into the air and stamping feet on the ground.
“Ke ba binela ZCC mo go nna,” Sesana claims.
When the officers’ ZCC dance troupe finally got offstage, Sesana says he was arrested and later had to dip into the Swedish money to pay the lawyer who got him out of the mess. Gakelebone confirms this expense.
According to Sesana, the money soon ran out and staff had to be retrenched. Thereafter, Sesana says that he went to Namibia to raise an SOS appeal which, fortunate enough, received positive response. Some of the staff was taken back and the Namibian money kept the organisation going until mid last year.
Around July last year, FPK was broke once more and P100 000 in the red, its coordinator, Kgosimontle Kebuelemang, relocated to Maun where he is still staying and the office closed down. Sesana, as other staff members, has not been paid since July last year.
Financial management seems to be a challenge that FPK has not been able to handle well. Correspondence between the coordinator and the chairman of FPK’s board of trustees, Gwanxlae Xwigam, makes that quite evident. Kebuelemang’s letter reveals that some donors have been gravely concerned about the manner in which FPK administers money donated to it.
He writes: “FPK is a non-profit organisation that relies on others to take care of its expense budget. If your cards are not dealt properly and every potential donor gives you their back, who do you expect to pay for your staff salaries, rent, electricity, water, fuel to and from New Xade on a daily basis, vehicle repairs when broken on the way to CKGR, board accommodation at Permaculture and others?”
Kebuelemang says that when he joined FPK in February 2007 it was already wallowing in “huge debts.”
However, Kebuelemang himself has not been placed too far away from the mess. Xwigam says that “FPK experienced its highest amount of debt” under him as he spent the organisation’s money with neither the knowledge nor consent of the board. One example was when he reportedly hired two personal secretaries whom Xwigam makes a deliberate point of identifying by gender: “You are said to have employed two female personal secretaries in the office without the consent of the board.”
Sesana says that it has not been possible to raise money because their benefactors want a financial report of how previous donations were spent before they can give the organisation any more money. However, that report has not been compiled. Xwigam points a finger of blame at Kebuelemang (“You have failed to prepare and present activity and financial reports to FPK board since 2007”) who conversely says that “it is not my responsibility to prepare financial statements, although I can.” He can but won’t.
Meanwhile, the donors are waiting for that report before they can release any funds.
