Madonna calls in auditors over Malawi school failure

[HMG Celebrity News] – The crushing poverty and lack of opportunity inflicted on children in Africa is beyond belief. Madonna has done charity work there, but one of her projects ‘Raising Malawi’ has run into serious trouble.

Their goal was to build a school for 400 girls in Malawi, a tiny, land-locked nation in the southeastern corner of Africa. But the whole thing has collapsed after allegations of fraud among the foundation’s bosses.

Tracy Anderson – the boyfriend of Madonna’s former trainer – was the Executive Director, and auditors brought in to clear up the mess say he approved ‘outlandish’ expenses like cars, office space, free housing and even a limo and driver for the school’s director. But the school was never built.

Madonna, who has adopted two children from Malawi, co-founded the organization with Michael Berg, the co-director of the mystic Jewish movement known as Kabbalah, of which Madonna is a member.  The project won also supported from major names such as A-Rod and Gweneth Paltrow. But plans for the school have now been entirely abandoned.

“A decision has been made to discontinue plans for the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls,” Michael Berg of the Kabbalah Centre and co-founder of the project told donors. He also reported the entire Board of Directors had been replaced.

Madonna lent the project $11-million and was a regular visitor to the school’s intended location. But yesterday she issued a statement saying she still plans to use the foundation to improve life for the local people;

“There’s a real education crisis in Malawi,” it reads. “Sixty-seven percent of girls don’t go to secondary school, and this is unacceptable. We’re going to address this in every way we can.”

The statement offers no acceptance of blame, nor any hint as to why she didn’t see the problems as they arose.

Trevor Neilson, a founder of the ‘Global Philanthropy Group,’ which Madonna hired last November when the cracks began to appear, says he told the singer the school was an expensive mistake and she should fund existing organizations instead.

But the accounts prove Madonna’s team ignored that advice and spent $3.8-million on a school that does not exist, architects and designers who never completed their job and two cars for employees who were not even hired.

“Despite $3.8 million having been spent by the previous management team, the project has not broken ground,” he told the Times. “We have not even accounted for all the funds that were used.”

In what may be another bad decision, ‘Raising Malawi’ will not now be disbanded. Instead it will use the remaining funds to help reduce the poverty among the nation’s 15-million people.

And that’s the story as we know it so far – A good idea driven into the ditch by alleged mismanagement and suspected fraud. Do you think Madonna should have seen the crash coming or was this all due to the staff? Add a comment and let’s take a poll…