This is a warning issued to development organisations and/or aid donors considering helping out the Association Tin Suani, or any organisation from the Mahadaga region in Burkina Faso (departement of Logobou / Logbou, province of Tapoa).
Iles de Paix has been a partner of Association Tin Suani since early 1999. We still are formally. Between 1999 and March 2001, we invested around 125.000 USD in the region through the Tin Suani partnership in the fields of food security, education, capacity building and institutional reinforcement.
As of early april 2001, we uncovered with certainty massive disfunctionnings at the head of this peasants' association.
The leader and founder of the association, Emmanuel Lompo, has been embezzling the association's funds, probably since the early days of the partnership. The fraud could amount to up to 20% of the association's budget, which is enormous in terms of local purchasing power. Further more, he took over the private ownership of some of the investments financed in the name of his association. For example, he overtly claims ownership of the "centre artisanal" financed by the Agence Française de Développement (13.000.000 CFA / 17.500 USD) for the Association Tin Suani. Emmanuel Lompo has also developped a mastery in double talk and information manipulation.
These dysfunctionnings have also been attested by former or current partners of the Association Tin Suani. References are available upon request.
The Association continues to look for financing, either through Emmanuel Lompo or other friends, among which at least one has already been found guilty of embezzlement (around 100.000 USD of public money). We advise you to pay extreme attention to the contents of any document or aid applications send by Emmanuel Lompo or his friends. Most of the information included might be false.
Emmanuel Lompo has also been known to have multiple fake organisations covering his different activities. They go by the name of Centre de formation professionnelle et artisanale (CFPA), COPROATA, BAOBAB développement, ... To our knowledge, none of these structure have a real existence.
The Association Tin Suani does have a real existence, though. Its membership counts roughly 75 peasants groups from the Mahadaga region, or around 2000 individuals. Unfortunately, to this date, it's been unable to take proper action to recover embezzled funds because Emmanuel Lompo's grip on the association is still too strong.
More information on our partnership with Association Tin Suani and the problems occuring in that structure are available by email from Denis Dubuisson, project manager, Iles de Paix.