Hussain - the Taxi-Scandal Timeline

First and foremost can I urge you to rush out today and buy Private Eye Magazine where Labour Sandwell and Mahboob Hussain appear in the "Rotten Boroughs" section (SMBC's second recent appearance)!

Sandwell Labour's Deputy "Leader" Mahboob Hussain has broken cover and given what purport to be explanations for his failure to mention his involvement with Five Star Taxis who have entered into very valuable contracts with the comrades and received a minimum of £99,000 to date. Even more worrying is that Sandwell's supposedly "independent" Chief Officer, Jan Britton (£164,000 per annum) has gone to the media to try and defend Hussain and his misdemeanors. Meanwhile the ludicrous "leader" Cooper has been putting "The Laughing Policeman" on Twitter mocking efforts to involve the local plod.

But Hussain didn't forget to complete a truthful Declaration of Interests just once - he "forgot" twice just as he "forgot" to specifically declare his and his family's interest in Five Star when they apparently "tendered" for two different contracts. Have a look at the timeline and see what you think:

2012 - Hussain completes his original Declaration of Interests. There is no contract at this point and he does not declare his shareholding nor that of his wife. But Five Star then enter into negotiations for a share in a lucrative contract apparently whilst Hussain is still Company Secretary and a shareholder and his wife remains a shareholder. On 31st August, 2012 Hussain resigns the Company Secretaryship and transfers his remaining shareholding to his daughter whilst his wife retains her 20% shareholding. In breach of the law he does NOT declare an interest in the contract nor amend the Register of Interests. The Police need to investigate this - pure and simple. The money then started rolling in from Labour from 1st October, 2012.

(I had assumed that Five Star had somehow got in on the existing three year taxi contract that was already running but it may be that they entered into a separate contract I have discovered which had number 2012/S 110-183191. I will be doing a Freedom of Information Act request about all the "deals").

2012/2013 Five Star did then bid for a share in the new £10.5m 3-year taxi contract (ie a second contract) and, once again, Hussain totally failed to declare his family's interest in Five Star nor did he amend his Register of Interests. The Police need to investigate this. Fortunately (!) Five Star were accepted and that contract started for three years starting 24th February, 2014. Jan Britton who has decided to act as Hussain's apologist says everything was all above board......

09/10/13 and 22/07/14 Unbelievably - this is good this bit - Hussain has told Private Eye Magazine that he gave the shares to his daughter Shasta Parveen as a "wedding gift" but on an unknown date between these two dates Hussain took the shares back into his own name! Some gift! I can only assume the marriage was not successful!

11/09/14 This is an absolutely key date. On top of the grave failures referred to above Hussain actually completed a new Declaration of Interests. Despite entering into two contracts and taking his 30% shareholding back into his own name he claims to the BBC that he "forgot" all this (and his wife's shareholding). Accordingly he made a false declaration just a couple of weeks ago. He would have been well aware that I first blogged about Five Star way back in May and also that I have been exposing the false declaration made by the Labour Liar, Cashmore, and also, possibly, by Labour's Tony Meehan. Once I exposed this false declaration and Private Eye Magazine contacted him, Hussain finally amended the Register.

Highly-paid Jan Britton has claimed the form is quite difficult to fill in. This is absolute bollocks. It is simplicity itself plus there is a "plain English" guide to assist thicker councillors to fill it in. The Monitoring Officer - £128,000 per annum Neeraj Sharma- is also there as a qualified lawyer to provide assistance. Clearly now it is admitted that "everyone at Labour Sandwell knew" about the non-disclosure it begs the question why Britton and Sharma failed to fulfil their own obligations to the Council and to the public. Clearly, the implication is also that all the political heirarchy knew about this but chose to ignore it and allow two valuable contracts to go to Five Star in any event. Why?

It will be interesting to see if all the taxi firms bidding for the contracts were aware of the Hussain family interest and, more particularly, its non-disclosure to the public.

Hussain was able to act as a Company Secretary (which involves, er, filling in forms) and has proved adept at shifting his personal shareholding around the family but now it is said he was too thick to complete a basic form and he can't remember his Company bidding for multi-million pound contracts or taking the shareholding off his daughter and back to himself. Regular readers will also recall that he "forgot" that he approached the College first in respect of the Public stitch-up so that Labour Sandwell lied about this in their Cabinet documents. No doubt a very able second-in-command indeed to the Clown Prince!

All this needs a thorough outside investigation particularly as Five Star (and, by definition, Hussain and his wife) are still set to receive huge sums of taxpayers' money until February, 2017. Let's see if Sandwell Police are "independent" or if they really are under Cooper's malign influence........

(Many thanks to Private Eye for the information about the wedding "gift").

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