The brother of Sibhat Nega, Abeselom Nega has been convicted of scamming $4.2 Million dollar

GUILTY: Abeselom Nega was initially facing 26 charges where police alleged he scammed $4.2 Million dollars through his organisation named iEmpower that ran programs for refugees and disadvantaged young people.

But the Melbourne-based “community leader” pleaded guilty to five charges, including of stealing money, inventing qualifications to win a publicly funded board position at the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, making false financial statements and faking insurance documents to gain funding.

Abeselom claims to have gambled the money in Crown Casino.

Magistrate Graeme Keil noted it had been a “monster of a brief” with 11,000 pages of documents and told Nega he’d “saved everyone a lot of time pleading guilty”.

Magistrate Keil convicted Nega and sentenced him to an 18-month community corrections order with treatment for alcohol abuse and mental health issues.

Describing his sentence as “extraordinarily lenient” given the volume of money involved, Magistrate Keil urged Nega not to breach his order.

Mr Keil said the government bodies who gave money to iEmpower were “entitled to feel extraordinarily bitter and disappointed that funds had gone astray”, but noted that witnesses representing those bodies hadn’t criticised Nega in court.

Former City of Melbourne councillor Beverley Pinder previously criticised her own council for its lack of scrutiny when handing over hundreds of thousands in funds to Mr Nega between 2015 and 2017.

She described the alleged fraud as a “disgrace”.

And went on to say “Community leaders who inveigle themselves with political parties and benefit from strategies of the bureaucracy are a disgrace and a blight on those who are intent on supporting and progressing opportunities for all minority groups,”

Abeselom’s supporters had raised $19,100 through the goodwill of 50 donors “for his ongoing expenses to lawyers,”

There are plenty of young African Australian people doing great community work at the grass roots, but they never get government funding.

Governments must change the approach of “trusted African” and look at funding at the grass-roots. Not those who rub shoulders with them or have political affiliation.

End of the day, it is the vulnerable in our community who are hurt the most by this.

When we first posted about Abeselom’s charges two years ago, we received threats of violence in our email including “take it down or I’ll send the boys..”.

Any threats or abuse through any means will be reported to the police.

We will never stop speaking the truths, no matter who it is.

#africanaustralian