Did Mayor Fiaz Know This?

The gnomes have been at work and unearthed some interesting and frankly worrying history relating to the Mayor’s recently appointed Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources. The following piece comes from a memo from a council officer.

In years past, Zulfiqar Ali was an employee of the council and involved in the regeneration of Green St. Subsequent to that he became an elected councillor in Newham for Plaistow North, (2006-2010)

As such, one might expect that he had more than a passing knowledge of the internal procedures for procurement. But if so, it appears that one would be wrong.

Under the Wales regime, Ali received a special responsibility allowance in connection with his community role in the Plaistow area.

Back in 2008 Cllr Ali was responsible for the oversight of community events. Included in the events was a celebration with food, for which the budget was £858. Unfortunately, the cost was £1200. A slight overspend!

Working to a budget is a requirement in most jobs, particularly if you are in charge of spending on a £1bn pa enterprise, say like Newham Council. But it gets worse.

It wasn’t simply that Cllr Ali, (or the council officers) had not been keeping a check on the money. Cllr Ali had taken it upon himself to sort out the catering, with a company that was not registered as a contractor with Newham Council and contrary to the published policy of Newham Council. One might reasonably ask why a councillor would want to get personally involved with the award of contracts, but alas, we do not know.

In addition to the excessive cost and a councillor acting in the role of an officer, it transpired that there were irregularities with the VAT and that Cllr Ali was listed as the contact person for the council on the invoice.

This was in the bad old days, before the efficient, open, inclusive and transparent administration run by Mayor Fiaz. Consequently, we understand that Ali was invited to a meeting with the then mayor, Robin Wales. Wales, it appears was very unchuffed with Cllr Ali and his breach of proper procedures. This was in the times when councillors were expected to exercise a degree of discretion. The result of the meeting was that Ali had his special responsibility allowance and Lead Member role removed and he was taken off the list of potential councillors for the next election. 

Quickly, efficiently. No scandal. No histrionics. No repeat of the problem.

Our correspondents were thus a little surprised to discover in 2018, that Mr Ali was back on the Labour Party panel of candidates. Several have suggested that it was the influence of long-time friend Lyn Brown MP that got him back onto the list, though there may have been other considerations such as his connection with the mosques in the borough. Whatever it was, Ali was back.

Having had a dubious history with finance and contracts, Cllr Ali has now been catapulted to the head of Finance. 

Does this make sense to anyone other than the mayor? Why would she make such a decision? Are there other factors at play?  Is it too late for Mayor Fiaz to change her mind? Does anybody care?

We have appended a series of letters and internal documents from LBN below which evidence the events above.