A Zimbabwean has found herself at the centre of bullying and abuse claims at Bono’s ONE Charity. Some workers have claimed that Dr S...
Some workers have claimed that Dr Sipho Moyo, the former
£173,000-a-year Africa executive director of ONE had mistreated them. The Daily
Mail reports that the complaints include claims that she intimidated one member
of staff into massaging her feet; woke another worker at 1am in South Africa
and ordered her to sort out the air-conditioning in her hotel room – in
Seattle; invited colleagues to parties at her house, only to use them as
waiting staff, making one woman stand outside for up to seven hours mixing drinks
and ordered a worker to find her a greyhound puppy, then drive to another city
to collect it.
But Dr Moyo, who set up and ran One’s Johannesburg
office for five years, has hit back vehemently denying the claims. She said she
was being smeared.
She said that other directors treated her 'like their
personal maid' and abused her in public. Moyo insisted last night she was tough but fair. 'I treated
ONE staff like my family,' she said.
'I demanded high standards but never treated people in a
disrespectful form.' She believes she is being 'framed' for wider failings in
ONE to make everything look like the fault of Africans, claiming: 'Being an
African at ONE is to be inferior.'
Last year, Moyo became aware that the campaign was holding
an inquiry and says she wrote to Bono asking for any investigation to be
inclusive and transparent.
In an email to the campaign’s former chief executive
Michael Elliott, who died in 2016, Moyo said her health was deteriorating as a
result of the working environment. She told Elliott that she had experienced
“utter fear and extreme heart palpitations” during meetings with him, adding:
“It is the first time in my life that I have lived and worked in utter fear of
a boss. And I’ve had my share of bosses.”
Bono last night said he was 'deeply sorry' for the
situation, which he admitted had 'gone badly wrong'.
He said he was left 'reeling and furious' about the scale
of the allegations and vowed to meet victims to apologise in person.
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