Azeem's Back in Business!

I am delighted to note that the police are taking no further action against Sandwell Council employee, Azeem Hafeez, who happens to be the son of ex-Deputy Leader, Labour's, Mahboob Hussain, in respect of unspecified allegations against him.

Mr Hafeez was arrested some time ago and placed on police bail in respect of those unspecified allegations. Happily for the Hussain family and for him the police have decided to take no further action. With luck, one of his companies, Broadwell Developments should net him at least one million pounds clear profit from the Lodge Street development in Oldbury where, thanks to criminality or gross negligence by person or persons unknown, Jan Britton's Council sold him the land for just £140,000 (and also sold him the old Coroner's Office at an undervalue). Good luck to him I say, and I hope I will be invited to the party at the Hussain family's favourite venue - Akbars on Brum's Hagley Road - when the last house sells.

The top of the range house at Lodge Street underneath the M5 on a site described as "f*cking sh*t" by Mahboob!

There are long-standing freedom of information requests in with SMBC with regard to various land sales (including Lodge Street and the Coroner's Office) which they have refused to answer because of the police investigation though it is by no means certain what exactly the police actually have been doing for over fourteen months at considerable expense to the taxpayer. I have written to the Chief Constable to find out what is going on and will report back to you in due course. Certainly the police actions have done nothing to dispel the widely-held belief in Sandwell that the Council and certain individuals are being protected, for whatever reasons, by senior officers within West Midlands Police. There is even a strange rumour circulating that although the put-upon Azeem was arrested and bailed he was never actually INTERVIEWED by the police in respect of any issue. If they had no evidence, what was the point of arresting the poor chap in the first place and causing him undoubted stress.

Accordingly, I have now written to Jan Britton chasing a reply to the FoI's so we can try and see where the responsibility actually lies for some really appalling "deals" and huge losses for us taxpayers.

In the meantime, SMBC are using the "personal information" exclusion to the Freedom of Information Act to refuse to provide details of Azeem's employment with the crafty comrades. Curiously, local folk are also reluctant to speak to me about this as, for reasons that are a complete mystery to me, they fear "retribution".

I did ask Azeem's solicitors if they would provide his employment history though they have, so far, declined to do so. Of course, many have marvelled at Jan Britton's laissez-faire attitude to Azeem's many outside interests in addition to the day job that the taxpayer pays him for. This entrepreneurship seems to be actively encouraged by him and his direct boss, our old friend Nick Bubalo. Azeem has been involved in all of the following companies (though I am not sure if all coincide with his SMBC employment) and Bubalo was also aware that he developed three new-build houses on John Street, Oldbury, in his spare time away from the onerous workload imposed on him by Cooper and Britton. Then, of course, Bubalo and lawyer, Sharma, were tasked to dispose of the two properties referred to above and were happily able to find a willing buyer right under their noses

In the meantime, there have been persistent rumours that Azeem has been on long-term sick leave from SMBC but I am unable to confirm that. As it happens, there was a rare, mildly critical article by the Wolverhampton c*ck-suckers recently saying Council employees - despite their generally good terms and conditions - had taken 189 YEARS off sick in just 12 months! Nevertheless, they gave the last word to the ludicrous intellectual colossus who "leads" the Council, Darren Cooper, who sees everything in terms of winning and losing with nothing in between. This led the Sage of Smethwick to actually claim that this was relatively good in that, despite reasonable generous holidays, SMBC's slackers took an average of ONLY eight days each off per year when the national average for councils was 8.7 days!

But this joker went on to say:

“As a good employer we provide support for staff when they need it and manage employee sickness. However, in a relatively small number of cases as a last resort we have had to dismiss 18 employees over the past two years under our robust sickness absence management procedures.”

No doubt, this clown will break off from looking at his collection of dog-excrement posters and will be calling for Azeem's file tomorrow to make sure all is well.......

Mind you, if Azeem is back in the heart of Bubalo's empire let's hope he can quite properly buy up some more publicly-owned land at cheap rates to bolster his burgeoning business empire now that he has recently marriage (congratulations from all at The Skidder by the way). And if he does return he may have a little less time to serve the public as he has TODAY started yet another new business based on Washwood Heath Road. He describes himself to Companies House as a "manager" (?)

I am sure you would all like to join me in wishing Azeem well with his properties and with this brand new enterprise!

THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - COMMUNITY NEWS - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!

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