ISLAMABAD, Aug 12: The flood relief programme being carried out by Oxfam received a setback when an independent financial investigation commissioned by it confirmed a £135,000 fraud in one of its programmes in Sindh.

The funds were meant for delivery of water and sanitation goods to relief camps in Qambar-Shahdadkot and Larkana districts and distribution of cheques to flood-hit people to meet their basic daily needs.

The investigation carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) found that a senior official of Oxfam’s partner organisation — Pirbhat Women Development Society — had misappropriated the amount through forged invoices and extensive manipulation of cheques to suppliers.

Oxfam’s country director for Pakistan, Neva Khan, said the organisation had ended all financial relationship with Pirbhat.

In a statement on Thursday, Ms Khan said that Oxfam’s partnerships were based on trust in shared principles which in this instance had been lost.

“Nonetheless, Oxfam remains committed to continuing to work with and build civil society capacity in Pakistan,” she said.

Pirbhat informed Oxfam that services of the official identified in the report as the perpetrator and beneficiary of the scam had been terminated in May and it intended to take appropriate action against him and recover and repay the money that had been misappropriated in full.

“We first began working with Oxfam GB on women’s development issues seven years ago. We feel that our good work and our name has been blackened because of the action of one senior individual who has badly let us down as well as the communities we work with,” Pirbhat said in a statement.

“We have already taken steps to tighten up our policies and practices to ensure something like this never happens again.”

The investigation found that fraud had taken place between September 2010 and March 2011.