Sharma and the Labour Liar Cashmore.

£124,000 per annum Neeraj Sharma had a, er, glittering career at Walsall Council (see my blog, "Lessons From History" - 29/06/14) before joining Sandwell Council where she was Head of the Legal Department AND the Monitoring Officer. I say "was" because she recently had to re-apply for her job in Darren Cooper's recent reorganisation fiasco which saw high-powered Finance Officer Stuart Kellas leave the circus in mysterious and still secret circumstances. (Labour have now said, at last, that only Cllrs Cooper and Eling were at the disastrous interviews with Hussain sending his apologies!)

As Monitoring Officer, Sharma has presided over the joke "Register of Members' Interests" wherein the following Labour councillors have all been exposed by this blog as giving false declarations - potentially a criminal offence: The Liar Cashmore; Tony "Fudgy" Meehan; Steven Frear; Mohammad Rouf and, of course, the real "leader" himself, Mahboob Hussain. In the case of the latter it seems that Sharma was on notice that there was a problem with Hussain's declaration in respect of Five Star Taxis when that company was "tendering" for SMBC contracts but nothing was done about it (see my blog of 14/10/14 "Hussain's Register - What Did Sharma Know?)

Happily Ms Sharma survived the firing squad and on 3rd December, 2014 was appointed as "Director - Governance" (stifles laugh). Whether this will also mean a pay increase remains to be seen.....

In the meantime the Standards Committee has recently reported that the Labour Councillors are apparently too stupid to understand the Code of Conduct and the Register of Interests and have asked for them to be "simplified". Perhaps Ms Sharma could commission a "cartoon" version that the comrades can colour-in!

Quite what the cunning comrades find difficult with questions that the likes of Cashmore lied about eg "are you employed" is a mystery but it can't give the local populace much confidence that they can cope with making multi-million decisions on behalf of the Borough.

It seems that Ms Sharma has been providing training sessions for the dummies but it seems that even now they can't all get things right - especially proven liar Cashmore (now employed by the Express and Star Group!)

Ex-Councillor Jayne Wilkinson has long been pointing out the incongruity of Cashmore's lie that she has been a "non-paying tenant" of her parents, Roger and Linda Horton - both Labour Councillors themselves, of course. There is no such status as that type of "tenancy" in English Law. I have banged on about this too but am indebted to The Skidder's quondam legal adviser for pointing out that Cashers can't even get the lie right (a lie that she has continued within her latest register entry).

Cashmore and her husband (a Sandwell Council employee no less) have lived in South Birmingham with their two kids for years. But the local Labour Party decided to piss over the people of Bristnall and gift her a safe seat notwithstanding her real address. Here is HER original application for a seat with the local address shown:

Complete contempt for Bristnall folk.

(By the way, Sandwell Council have destroyed her nomination papers and so if anyone still has a copy please let me know).

Cashers - who has received thousands on pounds of taxpayers' money as a councillor in allowances and "special responsibility payments" (on top of the pay from the jobs which she failed to disclose) -then stated in two separate Register entries that she was the infamous "non-paying tenant" of Linda and Rog in section 4 of the Register, which relates to property ownership. My "legal eagle" has pointed out that as she does not have exclusive possession of 47 Hall Road and nor does she pay rent then even if it was true that she was/is living there she would be a mere licensee and not a tenant. Therefore, even if her story was true (!) she should have filled in Section 5 relating to "Any licence (alone or jointly with others) to occupy land in the area of the Borough of Sandwell for a month or longer".

ADDENDUM 11/01/15 - My attention has been brought to the Labour Liar's very first Register entry dated 10th May, 2011 ie just after she was elected. Here are the two relevant questions and you will see that when she was elected Cashmore was NOT claiming the mythical "non-paying tenancy":

9. Any land in your authority's area in which you have a beneficial interest? "None".

11. Any land in the authority's area for which you have a licence (alone or jointly with others) to occupy for 28 days or longer? "None".

Return to original text:

Accordingly it seems that the highly-paid "Monitoring Officer" has permitted yet another incorrect entry to remain unamended and, indeed, allowed it to be perpetuated. The so-called training sessions also seem to have not been as successful as the sleazy "socialists" suggest. Given the circumstances, however, this is all rather academic.....

Of course, the people of Bristnall also must be delighted that Cashmore has missed some recent Council meetings......

Incidentally, the last Standards Committee meeting [sic] discussed and noted a case involving a councillor in another local authority (ie not Sandwell):

"The member had misused the mobile phone provided to him by the authority to .......... He was also found to have sent inappropriate messages from the phone. The authority’s standards panel 

concluded that the member was in breach of the ICT policy and the Code of Conduct for improper use of the council’s resources and had brought the council into disrepute."

I can't think why but this brings someone else to mind..... "Lol" as that person so often says!

The Police fraud team are still collecting evidence in respect of possible wrongdoing at Sandwell Council - if you have information please phone 0121 251 2175 - DS Wayne Haynes.

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