Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson’s Alleged Unethical Scholarship Distribution Shakes Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
September 1st, 2010 - 7:54 pm ICT by GDBy Madhuri Dey
Sep 1, (THAINDIAN NEWS) The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation has ordered an internal audit of its scholarship program after Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson accepted in front of the media sources on Monday that she had endowed many of her relatives along with the children of one of her staff members with the foundation’s scholarships. On Tuesday, Rep. Donald Payne, the chairman of the foundation said that neither the congressional black caucus nor the foundation will in any way allow such steering of scholarships or programs that are designed to “benefit the community”. Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson on her part maintained that she would be returning the scholarship money distributed to the foundation.
The matter of Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson endowing scholarships to candidates who have not been able to meet the eligibility criteria of the Foundation, was first made public by a reputed media source recently. The media source named around 23 scholarships handed by the representative since 2005 that have violated the eligibility rules. On Monday, Eddie Bernice Johnson said to media sources that her actions were unintentional. The claims have however failed to impress the members related to the foundation.
The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation is a tax-exempt organization that reportedly has strong links with the group of African-American lawmakers. Rep. Donald Payne said that although the organization carries out a lot of checks and follows a strict set of rules to endow scholarships, “there are weaknesses and there are people who find a way around the system”. He also announced that the next scholarship program will be delayed for few months to ensure that no such lapse occurs again. The alleged action of Rep. Eddie Bernice was also highly criticized by foundation attorney Amy Goldson who had been associated with the foundation for long.
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