CHARITIES do not usually sponsor football clubs. But the partnership between Hamilton Academicals FC and the charity Scotia Aid gave the charity respectability and local roots – and as recently as 2015, the Accies were hosting fun days and old boys’ matches to help promote the Uddingston-based good cause. Now the club has joined local authorities, including Glasgow City, North Lanarkshire and Fife councils, as well as several in England, as a victim of the Scotia Aid scandal. Another victim is the Italian charity Italia Onlus, which allegedly transferred funds for a hospital-clinic to Scotia Aid - a vital project, which never materialised.
The cause was meant to be improving lives in Sierra Leone. Under the leadership of founder and former chairman Dan Houston, Scotia Aid had evolved a partnership with the west African country.
The wheels came off when accounts obtained using freedom of information laws showed while its income increased in 2013-14, climbing from £790,000 the previous year to £1,020,365, a meagre £137,000 was handed out over the same period.
Some £313,000 went on consultancy fees to five companies associated with Mr Houston and two other trustees, Kieran Kelly, 34, of Motherwell, and chief executive officer Alan Johnston, 59, of Prestwick. OSCR said the trustees had failed toproperly account for cash taken from the Italian company. Houston had resigned by the time the regulators acted to bar his colleagues from running charities.
The most serious allegations, which OSCR is satisfied are true, centre on a cynical scheme to defraud local authorities, which has cost councils on both sides of the border hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The scam involved the charity sub-letting premises from businesses to claim the 80-100 per cent exemption from rates which apply to buildings used for ‘charitable activities’. But rather than using them, Scotia Aid then left them empty - saving firms with empty warehouses from huge rates bills. In return, the charity would receive a sizeable donation.
Its 2014 accounts showed 27 different landlords or businesses had paid the charity £867,017. This made up 90 per cent of the charity’s income.
Bankruptcy may leave the organisations which put their faith in Scotia Aid out of pocket. But few will regret its passing.
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