The Mountain of Fire and Miracles (MFM) Ministries International has described the recent report by the United Kingdom’s Charity Commission accusing the church of financial misconduct as flawed.
Premium Times reported that the UK’s Charity Commission had announced it had frozen the assets of (MFM), a Nigerian-founded church.
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On its website, the UK government concluded that the church’s trustees failed to manage the organisation’s finances properly across its UK branches.
In its report, the Commission found that MFM’s trustees did not properly oversee more than 100 separate bank accounts operated by different church branches.
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These accounts were opened and managed autonomously, often without informing central leadership or providing timely income reports.
Following the conclusion of the investigation, the Charity Commission announced that it had frozen the charity’s assets to prevent further financial risk while strengthening accountability structures.
Rebuttal
Reacting to the Commission’s claims, Dan Aibangbe, MFM’s spokesperson, said that no assets were frozen under any court order.
TheCable reported that Mr Aibangbe described the report as disappointing, “though not surprising”.
Although he admitted that the church had “some shortcomings,” the spokesperson added, “the charity commission has exaggerated the findings to fuel their faulty stand.”
“The MFM challenged the Charity Commission in court during the investigation and got a judgment against their mode of investigation. At no time were the assets of the MFM Charity in the UK frozen by a court or the Charity Commission.
“What happened was that the Building Funds of the Charity were wrongly, without information to the Charity, transferred from Barclays Bank to the Royal Bank of Scotland, with only the Signatory being the Interim Manager,” he explained.
He further revealed that upon the discharge of the Interim Manager, the full funds with interest were returned to Barclays Bank, where they were under the custody and control of the Charity Trustees.
Mr Aibangbe added that no trustee was found to be fraudulent or to have stolen any money.
Background
On 27 March 2018, the Charity Commission opened a statutory inquiry into MFM under Section 46 of the UK’s Charities Act 2011. Concerns have been raised regarding the possible misappropriation of charity funds and weak internal financial controls.
The Commission discovered that the church, founded by Daniel Olukoya, had expanded rapidly in the UK, growing from a few branches to more than 90 locations nationwide, without developing a solid financial governance structure to match its growth.
The commission reported that the church’s branches operated independently without central approval and that major financial decisions, such as property purchases and lease agreements, were made without trustee authorisation.
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Additionally, the report read that some branches used properties without securing planning permissions, leading to costly legal actions.
It highlighted that poor employment contract management resulted in financial settlements for employment disputes, and the lack of a unified monetary system created serious risks to charitable funds.
As a result, the regulator concluded that donor money was at risk due to weak financial oversight and poor governance.
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