I’d like to address my concerns on the systematic avoidance of legitimate accountability questions by the CeloPG stewards (reffered to as “you” in some places).
First, the stewards repeated demands for a critic’s “background and intentions” are irrelevant and corrosive. No one needs to pass a background check to question the stewardship of public funds, especially in a permission-less ecosystem. This forum operates under clear rules, questions must be civil and on-topic, which these are. Attempting to shift scrutiny onto the questioner, rather than the substance of the questions, is an attempt to silence dissent. The implication that questioners should dox themselves before receiving answers about public fund flows is particularly concerning. This isn’t about who’s asking; it’s about whether the stewards can answer. We will not be distracted by this.
Accountability isn’t a group project. You are being questioned about the specific issues within your operations. If the stewards were genuinely confident in their operations, they would lead by example rather than hiding behind the perceived lack of transparency in other entities. You are effectively attempting to engineer scenario where no review ever happens by making it dependent on some imaginary universal consensus.
You cite a “97% YES rate” as absolution that everything is fine. This is a profound misunderstanding of governance. A vote on a funding proposal is not a forensic audit, nor is it an absolution from future scrutiny. Shareholders voted for Enron’s board. Users trusted FTX. Popularity is not integrity. The community votes based on the promise of impact and the information you choose to provide at the time of proposal. Our questions are about the integrity of the process behind that promise and post proposal performance. Dismissing them because you get votes is an arrogant dismissal of the community’s right to verify how their money is being spent.
This raises more questions than it answers. Is the @CeloFoundation willing to go on record and confirm that they have performed a review of and and every allocation? Or are you implying the Foundation should be jointly “on the hook” for any discrepancies? Outsourcing your accountability to the Foundation does not satisfy the community’s right to direct answers.
The fact that you present this as reasonable governance reveals either ignorance of basic fiduciary principles or cynical exploitation of them. By demanding a governance vote for the audit itself, you are:
- Politicizing a technical process: You are transforming a straightforward requirement for financial and operational integrity into a political campaign, where social capital and narrative override factual review.
- Perverting Governance: You are misusing the community’s techncial upgrades and funding mechanism as a shield against accountability. Governance votes are for allocating resources and proposing technical upgrades, not for deciding whether stewards of those resources must be transparent. This sets a ruinous precedent that risks tainting Celo governance permanently aside from creating a never ending circular dependency.
- Ignoring Fiduciary Reality: In any functional system, those entrusted with funds (the board/stewards) are obligated to provide verification, not to require their principals (the community) to vote on whether they should be verified. Democratic governments do not require legislative approval before an auditor-general investigates executive spending; that is the entire point of independent oversight.
This is not a good-faith argument for fairness. It is the calculated strategy of an entity with something to hide, designed to exhaust public will and run out the clock. The community must reject this circular logic outright.
Who are these “key stakeholders” if not the community engaging here? The Celo Community Fund was established by the community, for the community in CGP-17; it is a collective resource generated by the network’s participants, inflation of the CELO token and return of colateral by Mento. The suggestion that only those with sufficient “skin in the game” should judge your integrity implies only wealthy stakers matter. This plutocratic framing is fundamentally at odds with community governance. Every participant in this ecosystem has standing to question how public funds are managed.
This is an attempt at manufactured consent. Integrity is not something you can vote into existence. Talking only to those likely to agree with you is a public relations exercise, not governance.
You are treating this as if you are doing us a favor by providing any information at all. Let us be clear: The community does not ask for “resources” from you; the community requires accountability. You are managing PUBLIC FUNDS established by the community itself. The fact that you frame mandatory transparency as a “resource” we should be grateful for reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of your role. You are fiduciaries of the Community Fund, not its owners.
Bottom line: You have constructed a fortress of deflections; questioning critics, conditional audits, and appeals to popularity all to avoid a simple truth: stewards of public funds do not get to debate whether transparency is owed. They must provide it. Your entire response is a fiduciary betrayal wrapped in procedural excuses. We, the community, will not fall for it.