Madonna's Malawi school scrapped after directors squander millions

Published on Friday 25 March 2011 15:19

A CHARITY set up by Madonna to build a school for impoverished girls in Malawi has collapsed and plans for the facility abandoned.

The board of directors for Raising Malawi has been kicked out and replaced by a caretaker board which includes the pop star and her manager, officials said.

Auditors found the management had blown money on salaries, cars, office space and a golf course membership, free housing and a car and driver for the school's director.

The executive director of the foundation - the boyfriend of Madonna's former trainer, Tracy Anderson - quit in October after criticism of the cost overruns.

Now the planned $15 million school, which would have educated 400 girls, has been officially scrapped after a total of $3.8 million was spent.

Funding for the project had come from Hollywood and high society circles, as well as the Los Angeles-based Kabbalah Centre International, an organisation devoted to Jewish mysticism which is practised by Madonna.

Madonna, in a statement issued on Thursday, said she was still committed to making improvements to Malawi.

She said: "While I'm proud of these accomplishments, I'm frustrated that our education work has not moved forward in a faster way.

"There's a real education crisis in Malawi. Sixty-seven per cent of girls don't go to secondary school, and this is simply unacceptable. Our team is going to work hard to address this in every way we can."

Scots campaigners remain heavily involved with the African nation and said accountability for worthy projects had to remain high. Links between the countries are estimated to benefit 1.38 million Malawians and 280,000 Scots each year.

Rev Prof Kenneth Ross, chairman of the Scotland Malawi Partnership, said: "The Scotland Malawi Partnership supports the highest levels of accountability: recent events highlight the fact that, no matter how big or small, it is essential all projects are well managed and properly resourced.

"The historic bilateral civil society relationship between Scotland and Malawi is based not on 'donors' and 'recipients' but on long-standing, mutually beneficial community to community, family to family and people to people links.

"It is a relationship built on trust and mutual respect. As part of this relationship more than 180 schools around Scotland have active partnerships with Malawi: these links are supporting and strengthening education in both Scotland and Malawi."

An email from the Kabbalah Centre by Michael Berg, its co- director and also co-founder of Raising Malawi, announced the replacement of the board of directors.It said: "A thoughtful decision has been made to discontinue plans for the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls, as it was originally conceived."

Madonna used her name, reputation and $11 million of her own money to boost Raising Malawi and has been a regular visitor to the country since adopting two Malawian children.

Trevor Neilson, a founder of the Global Philanthropy Group, which Madonna recruited last November, said he told the singer that building an expensive school would be ineffective and suggested financing existing education programmes.

He said an audit found $3.8 million had been spent on the school that will now not be built, with much of it going on architects, design and salaries.