Goal chief deleted key WhatsApp messages
GOAL’S chief operating officer, Jonathan Edgar, deleted WhatsApp messages as US agents began investigating his links to a firm caught up in a bribery and kickback inquiry involving emergency aid to Syria.
Mr Edgar hid his continuing involvement in Noble House – a firm that sought Goal contracts – after being by Goal told to cut all ties it.
He reportedly told a colleague that he had deleted the messages because some of them would ‘read weirdly’.
Noble House was set up by Mr Edgar with Jerry Cole, the charity’s head of risk audit and compliance, in 2013. A third founding partner was Ernst Halilov, a logistics specialist whom Mr Edgar had asked Mr Cole to investigate when allegations emerged of corruption involving Goal’s activities in South Sudan.
Despite these concerns, Mr Edgar and Mr Cole continued to manage Noble House as a private venture that won Goal contracts.
In December 2015, when USAid (which oversees US emergency funding) was investigating Noble House, Mr Edgar didn’t disclose his relationship with Mr Halilov.
In spring 2016, USAid, Goal’s largest donor, ordered the charity to investigate.
That investigation’s report, by accountancy firm BDO, was delivered to Goal in August 2016. Details of the report were published by the MoS last week. And today we can reveal his efforts to conceal his involvement with Noble House included deleting messages from his Goal-issued phone.
The report states: ‘Some of Mr Edgar’s WhatsApp messages had been deleted, including conversations between Mr Edgar and Mr Cole.’ Asked why, Mr Edgar ‘stated that he believed the messages, which he described as private, were deleted as a result of him using a new phone in April 2016’. But BDO found ‘this explanation was inconsistent with the fact that only some of Mr Edgar’s messages were deleted and much of the data we extracted from the phone predates April 2016, suggesting the device had been used prior to April 2016’. BDO was also told by a colleague of Mr Edgar’s that he told her he deleted messages because he was concerned some messages with Mr Cole would ‘read weirdly’’.
Investigators were able to recover most of the messages. In one, Mr Edgar asked Mr Cole that his shareholding in Noble House continue to be held in another name – to disguise his involvement with the firm. Others showed Mr Edgar ‘continued to be operationally involved in the Noble House venture until at least July 2014’ – long after he had been ordered to sever all ties by Goal.
‘He was concerned some would read weirdly’