Read Online Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way by Jon Krakauer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jon Krakauer
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claims are patently untrue, and they also turn out to be bogus for all but a handful of CAI projects. The statement about students learning five languages is absolutely false, says a CAI staffer, “ not even true for a single school. ” Most teachers, this staffer also reports, have never received any training from CAI.
Even more alarming is the fact that a significant number of CAI schools exist only on paper. The CAI website, for example, lists eight schools that have been completed in Afghanistan ’ s Konar Province; during his Charlie Rose interview, Mortenson claimed he ’ d built eleven schools there. At that time, he had built only three schools in Konar; in the months since, he has built a fourth.
Many CAI schools that actually did get built, moreover, were later abandoned due to lack of CAI support. “ Ghost schools, ” they ’ re called by the disillusioned residents of Baltistan, where at least eighteen CAI buildings now stand empty. No one, not even Mortenson, knows exactly how many CAI projects exist as ghost schools, or simply never existed in the first place, because he has repeatedly subverted efforts by his Montana-based staff to track effectively how many schools have been built, how much each school actually costs, and how many schools are up and running. For the CAI staff to gather such crucial information, Mortenson would have to accurately account for how he spends CAI funds — something he has never been willing to do.
Instead, for years the CAI books have been cooked to order. In 2010, for example, when CAI ’ s financial records underwent a long-delayed audit by an independent accounting firm (as the law requires in most of the states where CAI conducts fundraising), the auditor requested documentation from 2009 that showed how much CAI spent on each of its overseas school projects. Such documentation didn ’ t exist, however, so CAI staffers fabricated it. Because they lacked invoices and receipts with which to determine the schools ’ true costs, in many cases they simply guessed how many students might plausibly be enrolled at each school (or conjured a number out of thin air) and then applied an arbitrary formula based on school size to come up with a fictitious cost for each school. For example, if they imagined a school to have between 300 to 600 students, the school was said to cost $50,000 to build (according to this formula), and its annual operating expenses came to $7,500. Schools reported to have 601 to 1,000 students were said to cost $65,000 to build and $9,000 to operate. By this method, CAI staffers created a fraudulent document and gave it to the auditor. Astoundingly, the auditor accepted the document as genuine, no red flags were raised, and CAI posted the ensuing “ Independent Auditor ’ s Report ” on its website in May 2010.
* * *
DURING MORTENSON ’ S Edutopia webinar in April 2010, someone asked him if he still visits Korphe. “ I go to Pakistan and Afghanistan three times a year, maybe three to four months a year, ” Mortenson replied. “ I try to go to every school every year. ” But according to CAI staffers, Mortenson hasn ’ t been to Korphe — or anywhere else in Baltistan — since 2007, and he has never laid eyes on most of the CAI schools. Indeed, many CAI schools have never received a visit from any CAI employee.
To a certain extent, this failure has resulted from insufficient staffing. For the past three years, Mortenson has devoted the bulk of his time to getting Stones into Schools published, promoting his books, fulfilling remunerative speaking gigs, and fundraising. These days neither he nor any of his Montana-based employees goes to Central Asia to oversee programs firsthand, and his entire staff in Pakistan and Afghanistan consists of just eleven people responsible for more than a hundred projects, a large number of which require many days, or even weeks, of travel to visit.
The root of the problem, however, lies in
Even more alarming is the fact that a significant number of CAI schools exist only on paper. The CAI website, for example, lists eight schools that have been completed in Afghanistan ’ s Konar Province; during his Charlie Rose interview, Mortenson claimed he ’ d built eleven schools there. At that time, he had built only three schools in Konar; in the months since, he has built a fourth.
Many CAI schools that actually did get built, moreover, were later abandoned due to lack of CAI support. “ Ghost schools, ” they ’ re called by the disillusioned residents of Baltistan, where at least eighteen CAI buildings now stand empty. No one, not even Mortenson, knows exactly how many CAI projects exist as ghost schools, or simply never existed in the first place, because he has repeatedly subverted efforts by his Montana-based staff to track effectively how many schools have been built, how much each school actually costs, and how many schools are up and running. For the CAI staff to gather such crucial information, Mortenson would have to accurately account for how he spends CAI funds — something he has never been willing to do.
Instead, for years the CAI books have been cooked to order. In 2010, for example, when CAI ’ s financial records underwent a long-delayed audit by an independent accounting firm (as the law requires in most of the states where CAI conducts fundraising), the auditor requested documentation from 2009 that showed how much CAI spent on each of its overseas school projects. Such documentation didn ’ t exist, however, so CAI staffers fabricated it. Because they lacked invoices and receipts with which to determine the schools ’ true costs, in many cases they simply guessed how many students might plausibly be enrolled at each school (or conjured a number out of thin air) and then applied an arbitrary formula based on school size to come up with a fictitious cost for each school. For example, if they imagined a school to have between 300 to 600 students, the school was said to cost $50,000 to build (according to this formula), and its annual operating expenses came to $7,500. Schools reported to have 601 to 1,000 students were said to cost $65,000 to build and $9,000 to operate. By this method, CAI staffers created a fraudulent document and gave it to the auditor. Astoundingly, the auditor accepted the document as genuine, no red flags were raised, and CAI posted the ensuing “ Independent Auditor ’ s Report ” on its website in May 2010.
* * *
DURING MORTENSON ’ S Edutopia webinar in April 2010, someone asked him if he still visits Korphe. “ I go to Pakistan and Afghanistan three times a year, maybe three to four months a year, ” Mortenson replied. “ I try to go to every school every year. ” But according to CAI staffers, Mortenson hasn ’ t been to Korphe — or anywhere else in Baltistan — since 2007, and he has never laid eyes on most of the CAI schools. Indeed, many CAI schools have never received a visit from any CAI employee.
To a certain extent, this failure has resulted from insufficient staffing. For the past three years, Mortenson has devoted the bulk of his time to getting Stones into Schools published, promoting his books, fulfilling remunerative speaking gigs, and fundraising. These days neither he nor any of his Montana-based employees goes to Central Asia to oversee programs firsthand, and his entire staff in Pakistan and Afghanistan consists of just eleven people responsible for more than a hundred projects, a large number of which require many days, or even weeks, of travel to visit.
The root of the problem, however, lies in
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