21 Jul 2022
An investigation has concluded officials acted reasonably and within the law in their efforts to evacuate more than 150 animals, plus dozens of staff, during the Taliban takeover last year.
Allister Webb
Job Title
Pen Farthing, founder of Nowzad, welcomed the verdict.
The charity Nowzad has been cleared of any wrongdoing over its efforts to airlift scores of animals, plus staff and their families, to the UK from Afghanistan last year.
A Charity Commission investigation concluded trustees acted reasonably in relation to Operation Ark and the appeal’s purpose was made clear to supporters.
The charity’s founder, Pen Farthing, said he hoped the verdict would mean its efforts were “no longer diminished by political distractions”.
Nowzad raised £200,000 to charter a plane to evacuate a total of 162 cats and dogs, plus dozens of its staff and their families, from Afghanistan in August 2021 as the Taliban completed its takeover of the country.
The Commission said it opened a regulatory compliance case in the same month, following media coverage, to consider whether Nowzad’s actions complied with its purposes and charity law. No regulatory concerns were uncovered.
Tracy Howarth, the commission’s assistant director of casework and proactive regulation, said: “We take all concerns raised with us seriously and will always assess them impartially and expertly against the commission’s own criteria and the law.
“In this case, we did not find evidence of wrongdoing and recognised the trustees’ ongoing efforts to manage the charity under difficult circumstances.
“The commission exists to support trustees to meet their legal duties and responsibilities, as well as to take action where we find problems. To this end, we have provided Nowzad’s trustees with guidance to help ensure they respond appropriately to the uncertainty and challenges they now face.”
In social media posts responding to the commission’s findings, Mr Farthing, who recently returned to the Afghan capital, Kabul, wrote of “11 months of stress” related to the inquiry, which he claimed had gone well beyond the appeal itself.
In a later statement, he added: “We are pleased that the commission’s findings, similar to the recent report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, has absolved Nowzad of any regulatory infractions while highlighting the fact that we fully complied with charity law and protocols and acted transparently.
“We are optimistic that our successful effort to evacuate more than 60 of our Afghan staff members and over 160 shelter animals will no longer be diminished by political distractions, but rightly celebrated.”
