A whistleblower case involving a nonprofit organization made big news recently after an employee was fired for “uncovering too much corruption” in grants given to the organization. That employee was John Parsons, a former Inspector General for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
According to reports, Parsons was fired because his concerns about corruption within the organization could have potentially cost the Global Fund approximately $130 million in potential contributions from the United States. This raised some eyebrows within the Government Accountability Project (GAP), as it is extremely suspicious for an Inspector General to raise his concerns about potential corruption and then subsequently being fired.
The Audit and Ethics Committee of the Global Fund was behind the decision to fire Parsons, but one member of that committee says that the chair was putting undue pressure on other committee members to support a motion to fire Parsons. This committee member refused to comply with this pressure, and received retaliation himself, eventually being forced out of the organization altogether. Two other members of the Audit and Ethics Committee also lost their jobs after vocalizing their support for Parsons.
The United States is by far the largest donor of the Global Fund, so concerns raised by Parsons that would have put a big donation in jeopardy would have obviously had an earth-shaking effect on overall funding for the Global Fund. Investigation into the Parsons case continues to proceed, but as information continues to pop up it seems clear that Parsons was the victim of whistleblower retaliation.
If you believe you have wrongfully lost your job or have somehow been retaliated against for speaking up about corruption within your organization, work with the experienced Dallas attorneys at Whistleblower Law for Managers.
