Church in 7.5 crore Tsunami scam

Lady doc held for swindling Rs 7.5cr tsunami aid fund

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-5113896,prtpage-1.cms

CHENNAI: A lady doctor and her nephew were on Saturday arrested by Chennai police for allegedly swindling Rs 7.5 crore, which was disbursed by a US-based funding agency to a CSI church in Royapettah for tsunami rehabilitation work.

Police have also confiscated two luxury cars, valued at Rs 18 lakh each, which the accused is believed to have purchased through the funds. A hunt is on for the doctor’s parents, who were office-bearers of the CSI church, for their complicity in the fraud.

This is the first major case of tsunami-rehabilitation related fraud in Chennai. It needs to be noted that in the aftermath of the tsunami, hundreds of NGOs had set up shop in Tamil Nadu thriving on the liberal funds that came from abroad, making it the state with the highest number of NGOs. However, there was little monitoring of how the funds were used.

In the present case, a US-based NGO Episcopal Relief Development had given Rs 17.63 crore to the CSI church in Royapettah for rehabilitation of tsunami-affected people living in coastal Chennai.

“Recently new office-bearers assumed responsibility of administering the church and approached the US funding agency for more money to complete the ongoing rehabilitation work. However, officials at the ERD sought the account summary for the money allotted earlier and the work done till date. The church secretary Moses Jayakumar asked his predecessor Pauline to submit the accounts, but she refused claiming that the ERD funds were allotted to her in individual capacity and argued that she was not accountable to the church office bearers. This led to a tussle and an internal audit carried out by the new office bearers revealed a mismatch in funds allotted and the rehabilitation work completed to the tune of Rs 7.5 crore. Immediately, Moses Jayakumar lodged a complaint with the Chennai police commissioner T Rajendran seeking an investigation into the fraud,” a senior police officer said.

The central crime branch police conducted a probe during which it came to light that Pauline and Sathyamurthy had engaged their daughter Dr Benedicta and her nephew Robert Sunil as consultants for the Tsunami rehabilitation project.

“Both Benedicta and Sunil were entrusted with the funds and were also paid in the order of Rs 80,000 to Rs 90,000 per month in addition to other emoluments including luxury cars for official use. “Nearly Rs 7.5 crore meant for building houses for displaced fishermen, buying fishing nets and boats were siphoned off in this manner,” the officer said.While Benedicta and Sunil have been picked up, Pauline and her husband are missing.

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