Noble House link raised in phone call

The reporT says: ‘When on March 30, 2016, special agents from the oIG first spoke with Mrs [Anne] o’Leary and hugh o’Flaherty, they expressed their concern that Mr edgar, to that date the most senior member of Goal staff involved in responding to their enquiries, had failed to disclose to them his association with Noble house and/or Mr halilov, the subject of their investigation.’

referring to his interview with BDo, the report continues: ‘Mr edgar stated that in his first call with oIG special agents in respect of this matter on December 22, 2015, they had indicated Mr halilov was the subject of the investigation in relation to potential kickbacks he had received from suppliers in Turkey and so he did not believe his relationship with Noble house was relevant.’ The BDo report makes three notes, however: ‘The Goal attendance note of the call on December 22, 2015, states that the oIG raised the fact that Mr halilov had worked for Noble house. ‘on December 29, 2015, Mr edgar was provided with an oIG memo containing a list of companies being investigated by the oIG which included Noble house and red rose. ‘And on January 13, 2016, Ms Aken sent an email to Mr edgar stating that a Food for peace representative told her red rose had been blacklisted and that “we were not to use them for anything”.’ The report explains that despite the alarm bells about Noble house/red rose and the investigation by the oIG, Goal still went back into business with them. It continues: ‘Despite the information available to Goal suggesting that red rose was under investigation by the oIG, that it was in effect blacklisted by DFID [UK Department for International Development] and that its use was being strongly discouraged by the oIG in communications to other NGos, approval was given on February 18, 2016, to contract with red rose for a technology pilot in Nepal by Mr Andrews.’

Mr edgar stated to BDo, according to the report, ‘that he kept Mr Andrews updated verbally during this period’.

‘We [BDo] reviewed Mr Andrews’s emails for the period and identified no evidence that Mr Andrews was notified of oIG’s interest in these companies by Mr edgar or indeed anyone else.

‘We note that on February 18, 2016, Mr Andrews contacted Mr edgar requesting “a note from oIG to say that there are no official or unofficial suspensions in regards to suppliers arising out of their ‘investigation’ on procurement in Turkey for Syria”. ’