A federal agency admitted in an internal memo that it did no “due diligence” before spending millions of taxpayer dollars on a struggling Kenyan cellphone company. FinDev Canada, which approved the funding without parliamentary oversight, kept the memo secret for six years.Minutes from a November 10, 2017, board meeting obtained by Blacklock's Reporter show staff were forced to rely on work done by others because of time constraints. Directors were warned to prepare for scrutiny. A separate email noted the agency needed “to ensure the rationale for our involvement is articulated clearly and convincingly” because the first transaction would face significant attention. FinDev declined to comment on the documents.Then-prime minister Justin Trudeau launched FinDev in 2017 with a $300 million budget “to support private sector spend in developing countries.” Its first transaction was the purchase of US$10 million in shares of M-Kopa Holdings Ltd., a Nairobi-based door-to-door seller of cellphones and housewares..Access To Information records show management rushed approval for the M-Kopa investment only weeks after the company’s CEO reached out. The timeline shows:October 3, 2017: M-Kopa contacted FinDev “to explore investments”;November 10, 2017: board agreed the team must rely on due diligence done by others;December 8, 2017: board confirmed interest to pursue a US$10 million spend;February 26, 2018: US$10 million paid to M-Kopa.Since 2018, FinDev has spent an additional $33.4 million on M-Kopa shares, bringing its total spend to $43.4 million. The shares are not publicly traded. Over the same period, M-Kopa reported $138.6 million in combined losses.FinDev would not reveal how much taxpayers have lost. “FinDev takes seriously its responsibility for transparency regarding its financing and spend activities,” the agency said, adding it must also “protect commercially sensitive or personal and otherwise restricted information related to its private sector clients or other stakeholders.”
