Tuesday 4 November 2014

Alleged corruption in Tower Hamets - multiculturism in action?

Pickles has just put this rotten borough under the control of three commisioners answerable to him. Its taken him a while to get around to it. I remember how on election night the Tower Hamlet result  came in many hours after the other London boroughs. Now we know why!

The story was wriiten up a year ago by Gilligan in the DT.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10468439/Ignoring-corruption-is-the-real-racism.html

Damning quote from the then Attorney General Gieve.

"Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, has warned about “endemic corruption” within some minority communities. What did he do about it? "

"The Electoral Commission admitted there had been a “breakdown of trust” in the integrity of Tower Hamlets elections. But it and the police delegated the job of investigating many of the alleged irregularities to the council — in other words, to people working for Lutfur Rahman. Even where the police did knock on doors themselves, they didn’t do it very vigorously."

Sounds like another case of PC Plod scared of  racism allegations just like in Rotherham.

People who break electoral law should be properly investigated, charged and tried otherwise we will soon have no democracy and we end up like Afghanistan where self appointed community leaders, ie thugs, rule. 

Pick;es can be read by clicking

http://www.conservativehome.com/localgovernment/2014/11/pickles-tackles-corruption-in-tower-hamlets.html?utm_campaign=twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter

Its not just electoral but maladministration as well.

Pickles offered a summary of what was discovered:
“PwC found the Mayoral administration’s grants programme handed out taxpayers’ money with no apparent rationale for the grant awards.
There was no objective, fair or transparent approach to grants which the Council’s so-called Corporate Grants Programme Board was supposed to ensure.
There was no proper monitoring.
Grants were systematically made without transparency.
The officer evaluations were overruled.
Across Mainstream Grants, 81% of all officer recommendations were rejected.
Over £400,000 were given to bodies which failed the minimum criteria to be awarded anything at all.
On land disposal, properties were sold to third parties without proper process.
Poplar Town Hall was sold to a company involving a person who had helped the Mayor with his election campaign, against internal advice, and the winning bid was submitted after other bids had been opened.
A number of other property transactions similarly had dubious processes.
Taxpayers’ money was spent on unlawful political advertising for the Mayor.
Ofcom ruled that the spending was in breach of the Communications Act 2003 and the Code of Broadcast Advertising.
There was a lack of any documentation or monitoring of the use of media advisers.
So taxpayers’ money could be improperly and unlawfully used to pay for the Mayor’s political activities
Irregular practices took place in the awarding of contracts.
For example, PwC identified cases where one of the Council’s officers recalls that during a meeting, the Mayor allegedly annotated a list of suppliers to indicate which suppliers he did not wish to be selected.

Welcome to Londonistan!

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