Dear Hari,
Please see my replies in-line.
On Wednesday 14 May 2014 12:51 AM, Hari Prasad Nadig wrote:
Vishnu,
There have been detailed discussion on how the salaries seem to
overshadow everything else in CIS's proposal of *1.8 Crore*. And it is
not just me, many other community members who have logged their
comment there have felt that the salaries are quite extravagant to
Indian standards. Even the staff assessment takes note of this.
You yourself seem to be drawing around *24 Lakhs *per annum (which is
2 Lakhs per month!) that excludes travel and reimbursements as
declared by you. [1] I'm pretty sure even the readers on this mailing
list recognize that these are pretty huge salaries that we're talking
about for Indian standards in non-profits for the responsibilities
outlined.
Yes, it is no secret how much salary I draw or what the CIS-A2K program
budget is and what we have proposed. Members on this list will remember
that once I took over as the Program Director of CIS-A2K, I have ensured
that we bring transparency to the entire CIS-A2K program including the
project budget. We shared the entire A2K budget with the community in
May 2013 on this list [1]. Staff salaries which also includes my salary
were disclosed. Members on the list do know that we have taken this
transparency measure much before the current FDC application (or at a
time when we were not thinking about this FDC application). Neither I
nor the current CIS-A2K team had any say in determining the salaries.
There has been an extensive discussion on this here [2].
I am afraid that in your earlier mail the proposed A2K program plans
number was wrongly quoted along with the per-person salary and I was
merely highlighting the right facts.
Further, on the FCRA compliance issues, the compliance to Karnataka
Societies Act and the concerns about Conflict of Interest - there are
apparently some grave issues *which require that more documentation is
made public* by the CIS as stated by me at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/…
and at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/…
We appreciated this effort on Meta here [3]. Again let me appreciate the
community members and your effort to throw light on these concerns. As
stated in the reply on Meta [3], and I quote here for the benefit of the
members:
"CIS has never compromised in getting the best available professional
expertise in complying with the various statutory requirements. So at
the outset we need to state that CIS has always complied with the
statutory advice received from our legal adviser and whenever required
also sought second opinion. Thus to our current understanding we are in
the best possible compliance with the statutory requirements for the
not-for-profits in India. However, because a few of the community
members, in the interest of continuing support to Wikimedia movement in
India, expressed serious concerns, CIS will take every effort to share
these with our legal advisers for their professional opinion. This could
take some days, but we are certainly committed to sharing our legal
advisers' opinion on these matters with the community and FDC at the
earliest. This exercise is also important for CIS as it will help us to
put ourselves in much better compliance, if required."
We are committed to seeking the opinion of our legal advisers on the
concerns raised, as we respect the voice of the community members,
including you. Also it is more in the interest of CIS to better comply
with the statutory requirements.
I'm afraid that just the explanations may not
suffice here as the
concerns are serious in nature. I sincerely hope that you shall open
up the documents for at least the sake of transparency.
Please note that CIS has never kept its documents closed to open them
again. CIS gets its financial and institutional documents scrutinized
every year and reports to multiple authorities as part of various
statutory compliances. The Income Tax department periodically
scrutinizes CIS's accounts. All the documents are always open for
scrutiny by the donors. We have made every document available that was
asked by the WMF's visiting team to CIS (which includes WMF's CFO
Garfield Byrd) in February 2014. We had also thrown open all our
document to the general public for scrutiny during May 2013. I have
written to members on this list and other Wikimedia lists, inviting them
to come and scrutinize all our documents during this Open Week. Please
see the announcement here [4].
Thanks for engaging with CIS-A2K's work, which we always appreciate.
Best,
Vishnu
[1]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2013-May/009980.html
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/…
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/…
[4]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2013-May/009980.html