CAF General Secretary Mosengo-Omba accused of creating a toxic culture of fear, running the workplace as a proprietorship.
African football’s general secretary accused of creating toxic culture of fear.
Véron Mosengo-Omba, the general secretary of the Confederation of African Football, has been charged with operating the organisation as his “proprietorship” and fostering a hostile work environment where staff members are sacked for criticising him.
Mosengo-Omba is accused of excluding coworkers and stifling whistleblowers at the Caf headquarters in Cairo, where a number of current and former employees have reported feeling intimidated and paranoid.
Hannan Nur, the former head of governance, risk, and compliance (GRC), was among those fired. In a blistering report last year, Nur accused Mosengo-Omba of, among other things, violating internal governance and auditing standards and “impeding” personnel of her department from carrying out their tasks. Caf’s audit and compliance committee later asserted that Mosengo-Omba had interfered without permission in an effort to “whitewash” the ensuing probe.
“Anyone who dares to speak up – anyone who is part of the report – is terminated, without cause, without any due process,” said one senior employee who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. “We live in an organisation that deliberately hides the truth so as not to embarrass the secretary general and his entourage. Everything is political now.”
“We have clear instructions to control information and prevent certain things from leaking out; that’s how it is,” said one communications officer who did not want to be named. “When the two reports started to leak, they hunted down the mole – that was their concern rather than sorting out the issues.”
Employees claim the independent committees are no longer independent, with key decisions “manipulated” or “influenced” by Mosengo-Omba’s office. “Véron and some other directors are running Caf as their own proprietorship,” a former senior staff member said. “What is even more sad is the fact that the committees do not function. The independent committees are not independent. They’re influenced. Véron always tries to manipulate the decision and he’s always influencing them.”