I don't want to blow my own trumpet - but "toot, toot!" This blog has been the ONLY media outfit to report on the monumental Labour f*ck-ups (plural) relating to Providence Place (a huge, relatively new, office block near the new Premier Inn in West Brom).
For a few YEARS I have reported on this absolute sh*tshow. In short, the Labour Comrades at bent Sandwell Council entered into an absurd contract with BT (British Telecom). It must be remembered that most Labour Councillors have never run a whelk stall and that they have stripped out good staff in the paid service in favour of low-skilled "yes" wo/men. They entered into an absolutely disastrous deal. At BEST, BT had the pants down of the idiotic Labour Councillors - including former Leader, Steve "Squealing" Eling - and then gave these morons the shaft good and proper. At WORST, there was fraud involved in the procurement process and someone very close to the deal has informed the Bent Blues (West Midlands Police) and the mainstream media of his contention that £15m went "missing" during the transaction. [Shaft No. 1]
Of course, the disgraced former Chief Executive and head of the corrupt paid service, Jan Britton, and the wife-beater who used to "lead" the Council, Darren "Dickhead Daz" Cooper, could not resist boasting about the deal they had done in true Sandwell Labour-style. They modestly called the contract "Transform Sandwell" and bragged that it would be truly, er, transformational.
But the multi-million pound deal was a crock of sh*t and things rapidly turned sour. In the meantime, bent Labour Sandwell took out an eye-wateringly long lease on Providence Place at a rent of a mere £1,311,273 per annum [2014 figure][Shaft No. 2]. Incredibly, Eling and Co. also agreed to use our money to also pay a 3% rent increase EVERY year! They sublet part of the building to BT but had not envisaged what would happen if their "brilliant" deal soured. And they had overlooked that BT had a break clause in their lease with the Comrades so that they could simply walk away in 2017 leaving Labour holding the baby. As per, this whole affair reeks of gross incompetence and reckless disregard for the use of taxpayers' cash.
Of course, the BT deal did collapse and Sandwell Labour then had to spend huge sums of YOUR money to get out of their hopeless contract and to set up expensive alternative systems [Shaft No. 3]. It was now faced, after a very short period of time with having to pay the full rent to the landlord unless it could find another tenant(s) (although BT did stay in part of the building for a while). Incidentally the landlord was based in Guernsey, a tax-haven.
Now for the real stroke of genius! With BT wishing to pull out of much of their space and no prospect of them extending their lease the Comrades decided to, wait for it, "save money" by buying the freehold of the building. The wife-beater Cooper claimed that it would make an excellent new HQ for bent Labour in place of Oldbury Council House (OCH). At the time bent Labour repeatedly lied that this was NOT the plan (but see below) [Shaft No. 4].
Technically it was necessary to buy out the tax-haven Company's head leasehold to acquire an unencumbered freehold. This is from the Report to Cabinet back in 2014:
"The landlord's] interest has been valued by DTZ [a property company] on behalf of the Council at between £20.8million to £21.5million. The acquisition of the head leasehold interest would provide the Council with a modern headquarters facility in the heart of West Bromwich that will meet the Council’s accommodation requirements in future years. "
So there you have it - this was to be the new HQ! Incidentally, two of the signatories to the report were senior employees Nick Bubalo and Neeraj Sharma both of who have yet to face police questioning under caution as to their knowledge, if any, of the fradulent Labour land transactions at the time. (Of course, these jokers claimed they knew nothing despite being intimately involved in the bent deals ands so if they didn't know - they should have done!) They were booted out (although Bubalo left under the guise of ill-health. Sharma, who had come to Sandwell after being named and shamed at Walsall Council, was given a huge payout of YOUR money to keep her gob shut.)
And so the Comrades used YOUR money to purchase this white elephant "to meet the Council's long term office requirements". They continued to occupy space in the building and, in the case of the corrupt HR department, at least, spent colossal sums making it look, as one employee described, "like an Apple Store" [Shaft No. 5].
In addition to these ridiculous costs, these "socialist" muppets then decided that they wouldn't leave OCH after all and, indeed, they would spend massive sums on renovating it [Shaft No. 6].
The cost of the valuation by DTZ and the legal costs to acquire this building have not been disclosed but thanks to my efforts via Freedom of Information requests the bent paid service did eventually vouchsafe that YOU paid £22,750,000 for the freehold, plus £904,402 stamp duty plus £910 Land Registry fees - a total of £23,655,312 excluding the legal and other costs of purchase.
Two months later Sandwell had the building valued again and the figure was £20,653,431 which is an inexplicable paper reduction in of £2m in two months!
The comrades said at the time, that they borrowed £14.8m to try and get themselves out of the hole they had dug for the taxpayer! [Shaft No. 6]
A few months ago, Labour suddenly boasted (that word again) that they had done a "brilliant" deal for the taxpayer by selling the building for, er, £8.5m. It was said that it was to be sold via the Government for a specialist "free" school (wisely free of Sandwell Council's control) sponsored by the Birmingham Orchestra. Having paid over £23.5m for "Improvident Place" I asked how the apparent loss of £15m of OUR money in any way constituted "brilliant news" (and hang on in here folks since this gets WORSE!)
Yesterday, I attended the Audit Meeting (of which more to come soon). It started 9 minutes late with Chair Manjit Gill apologising for the late start but rudely failing to provide any reason for the delay.
Just to explain, the bent Labour Council's external auditor is now Mr Mark Stocks of the large accountancy firm, Grant Thornton. He recently courted controversy by giving the appearance (at least) of supporting Leader Rajbir Singh's continuing attempts to stop the Cox/Stevens Wragge Report Review (and the racist outrages described therein) from ever seeing the light of day. I will fill you in with details later on but he is also DIRECTLY involved in the unlawful attempt by bent Labour to pay Lisa McNally's legal costs in excess of £100,000 following the abject failure of her malicious case against me.
Stocks is, of course, supposed to be the protector of the public purse against this corrupt crew and to be apolitical. After last night we have to question his competence too!
To be fair to Mr Stocks he did face the wrath of the Comrades by raising the above disaster. This is what he said:
"Providence Place is one of the council's big buildings and you have very clear plans for it in terms of turning it into an academy for the arts and music. That seems laudable and sensible. I just wanted to draw out to you some of the financial implications of this. You will be aware the Council purchased this property for around £23m back in 2014. It did so on the basis of a long-term lease with the incumbent and I think at the time it was aware the freehold would be significantly less. The Council's also taken out significant loans to fund the purchase which stand at around £31m now in terms of principal and interest payments. The sale of the asset will trigger a significant loss for the Council whether you take that in terms of the amount paid against the likely [my emphasis] sale price of around £8.5m or even more if you set that against the actual future loan and interest payments that are outstanding so that the loss comes to around £22.5m so I can understand the individual decisions in respect of the original purchase and I can understand the Council's aims in terms of it trying to attract something as prestigious as the Symphony orchestra to the area er, it is a lot of money so all I think we can do at this stage or all I can do at this stage is ask you to reflect on it again so just make sure that loss is something that you're willing to bear but also I think that something you need to do in respect of your long term estate strategy to make sure you know that when you do enter into these purchases that you stick to what you're going to do because it is rather a lot of money."
Chris Hilton (a relatively new officer after Stevens’s “night of the long knives” who says he joined in February, 2021 as “Interim Service Manager for Land and Assets”) then described how the Council was, as he put it, "on the hook for rent" and would have paid the exorbitant rates it agreed until 2026 - hence the purchase. He added, "what we [SMBC} are left with in the year 2021 is a building that's empty and not worth as much as it would be if it had a blue-chip tenant in paying a top rent".
Hilton played on the "saving" of the exorbitant rent bent Labour agreed without any mention of the outstanding loan of, according to Mr Stocks, £31m which will have to be paid back. Keep that up chap, and you will fit in well at bent Sandwell!
Cllr Manjit Gill (Chair of the Committee) said a further valuation of the freehold was £9.5 to £11.4m (in which case why is it proposed to sell it at £8.5m when the taxpayer is already being screwed?) [Shaft No. 7?]
Mr Stocks said "the question for you NOW [my emphasis] is if you got another blue-chip tenant in, could you secure that kind of value (in the original valuation) again rather than selling it at £8m so I think these are big decisions for the Council but we'll continue to work with the Council on it.”
Then came the absolute bombshell. Clearly Cllr Gill and Mark Stocks were - alarmingly - completely ignorant of the actual facts. Gill asked when the purchase was due to be completed. Mr Hilton explained that the sale of the building to the Department of Education was agreed months ago and contracts had already been exchanged and the deal was awaiting completion!!! In other words the taxpayer has already been well and truly f*cked for £22m+ and neither the External Auditor nor the Chair of the Audit Committee knew anything about it lol!
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