In February, I highlighted this taxi claim by Ohid Ahmed, Lutfur’s deputy mayor.
And I wonder what the barons at Unison feel about him charging taxpayers £140 for a return trip from Mulberry Place to their Euston Road HQ on Dec 14, 2011. Maybe, like millions of others who have no choice but to suffer it every day, Ohid just dislikes the Northern Line.
A couple of weeks later, Ohid, in trying to actually justify this spending said how dare people criticise him for going to a “BME event”. Quite why going to a BME event allows you to steal from the taxpayer is anyone’s guess.
Thanks to our industrious Mulberry Mole, we now know what this event was: a 70th birthday party for Jesse Jackson – organised by Labour’s Ethnic Minority Task Force, which is chaired by MP Keith Vaz.
Peter Golds, in a letter to council boss Stephen Halsey today, complains the event could not have been anything other than political and, as such, he has demanded Ohid repay the money and an investigation.
Remember again, that even if Ohid was so desperately busy that he couldn’t take the Tube, the standard black cab fare from the town hall to the Unison building is about £25, according to online calculators. How he got to £140 is yet to be explained.
Here is Peter’s letter to Mr Halsey..
Dear Mr Halsey
Re: Cllr Ohid Ahmed, Council funded taxi for political purposes
On 14th December 2011, Cllr Ohid Ahmed charged the council for a taxi fare of £140.89. This was to travel from the Town Hall to the Unison Headquarters, 130 Euston Road, NW1 2AY.
The event, held at the Unison HQ, was organised by the Labour Party and Cllr Ahmed was invited by Keith Vaz MP. The Rt Hon Ed MIliband MP was also in attendance. I attach a copy of the invitation.
There is no way that this event could be considered as anything but political. The Unison office are within a few minutes walking distance of Kings Cross Underground, which can be reached from Mulberry Place, at that time of the day in about half an hour by taking a DLR to Bank and changing to the Northern Line. At 6.30pm there was no shortage of trains.
Last week the Police and Crime Commissioner for Cumbria came under fire and issued an apology for using a hired car to travel to non official functions. At full council last Wednesday Ohid Ahmed expressed his interest on Lord Nolan’s Seven Principles of Public, which do not include charging tax payers for using taxis to attend party political events.
I believe that this needs to be fully investigated and that Ohid Ahmed should repay the £140.89 and give a full explanation as to some of the other fares in the £1,482 he charged the public between in a period of eight months.
I look forward to hearing as to how this will be investigated.
And here’s the invitation:
Splendid! All power to the Mulberry Mole!!
Thanks for exposing this particular attempt to steal from those of us who contribute to Tower Hamlets finances. May the Mulberry Mole continue his/her sterling work.
There may be a totally innocent explanation. But he must be made to explain his claim. Surely it won’t be long until the ratepayers of LBTH are told to eat cake when they complain about the lifestyles of the LBTH Mayor and his cabinet.
One possibility is that having got the cab from Mulberry Place to Euston (£20), he offered Rev. Jackson a lift to Heathrow to catch his flight (£60) and then returned to Mulberry Place (£80) to continue working late into the night. Although this comes to £180, he may well have negotiated a discount from the cabbie (thanks councillor) by offering him food left over from one of the cabinet’s legendary buffets. Let them eat cake indeed.
In England, there is no independent regulator of Local Government or its councillors but Parliament’s MP’s have an Independent regulator. Why the double standard ?
This taxi fare is merely the tip of an iceberg in a borough renown for sleaze and abuse of the council tax payer’s cash. Ted’s newspaper should presented an annual local government sleaze award – I nominate Tower Hamlets.
If this taxi bill is an honest example of the rulers serving the locals with pride, dedication and enthusiasm, God help everyone when the mayor’s holiday taxi bills arrive.
. SO WHAT HE TOOK A £140 CAB FARE !
The council pay him 15k allowance surely they dont also expect him to pay his cab fares aswell. The only reason Ted is attacking innocent leaders of our borough is because the protocol isnt going his way. Majority of the borough is pleased with the work delivered by Ohid and Lutfur or else the 23,283 people that put them both into office would of backfired.
Ohid represented TH at Rev Jacksons birthday function and surely the high bill has a reasonable explanation behind it. The journey to Euston was during Londons hectic rush hour the meter on the taxi could of overflown due to the bad levels of traffic.
Maybe Ohid disagreed with the northern line because the was looking for the fastest resort to get there.
Ted needs to unveil his so called Inside Mole as they are interpreting slander to him. Ted should undertake deep research into this issue before writing an hour long essay misleading people.
Jesse Jackson must have felt right at home with people like Ohid Ahmed at his Party. £140 or $750,000 it’s all about spending other peoples money.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/02/20/172480780/guilty-pleas-expected-from-jesse-jackson-jr-wife-over-lavish-spending
I disagree, our public services have been destroyed by the authorities not listening to “whistle-blowers”. So Ted please keep blowing your whistle and outing the p**ss takers of our borough.
Are you serious?
I hope the bill does have a reasonable explanation behind it. I can’t imagine what it could be. If the tube did not appear to be the fastest option at first (which I very much doubt) then surely there would have come a point, during the immense traffic hold-ups you describe (which caused a fare which could have taken him out to Heathrow and back) when he must have thought ‘Hang on a minute, surely if the traffic is this bad then I have to get out and get the tube so that I will actually be in time for the start of the event. Oh, and also because the fare is going to be so high that the tube is cheaper’.
Having had to take a cab from central to East London during the rush hour very occasionally I can tell you that it would have to be gridlock across the capital before you could run up a fare of £140 for a journey to Kings Cross. Even if he was using a minicab (which relies on satnav and therefore is lost once outside the boundaries of where the driver normally works with no idea of alternative routes to the same destination.)
And we shall see, when the next Mayoral election comes, how far the people of Tower Hamlets believe that the current incumbents have delivered for them. So far the 23,000 who got them into office have had no option to get them out again.
Zak, you sound like a mole yourself. Or maybe another one of those ostriches we have heard about on here before. If there is a ‘reasonable explanation’ for this fare then I hope we hear it soon because we certainly haven’t heard it yet.
Can someone who is better at mathematistics than me remind me what proportion of the local electorate 23,383 people represent? More or less than a quarter?
This was clearly a party political event organised by Keith Vas and addressed by Labour Party leader Ed Milliband. In what snse was this a BME event and so what if it was? As such Cllr. Ahmed has a moral duty to repay the money and make a full explanation.
However why was he, as someone expelled from the TH Labour Group being feted by the Labourite “Great & Good” at the Unison HQ. Are their membership lists so out of date they no longer know who is and isn’t a member in good standing.
I think the main thing in this issue isn’t the taxi fares, that is now common place amongst Tower Hamlets councillors. What I question is what is the Labour Party doing spending money celebrating the birthday of one of the biggest hustlers that black America has so far produced, have a look at http://www.jessejackson.org. Further reading can be had by purchasing Kenneth R Timmerman’s excellent Shakedown: exposing the real Jesse Jackson, it is available from Amazon. The fact that the Britsh equivalent of Jackson, Kieth Vaz organised the thing should’t be a surprise but the presence of Milliband is going to backfire on him. Remember that Jackso was exposed on American TV for calling Obama a nigger who needs his balls cut off. Nice company you keep Ed.
Ohid isn’t a total idiot. Surely he knew this was improper so, if that’s the case, this is deliberate theft. The police should prosecute. Or Ohid should come clean and admit he’s a fool.
I gather this is a taxi firm with which the council has an account/contract.
It’s very possible they wouldn’t have a meter operating/visible in the cab in such circumstances.
Admittedly this is pure conjecture but it sounds to me like the cab firm are making a killing because they know it’s all on ratepayers and that the passenger won’t be aware of the fare.
If so, that’s a scandal in itself and should be investigated. It may be a widespread occurrence, perhaps at other councils and even across the public sector in such contracts.
There’s no way that journey could cost that much.
Yes, it is a scandal. But tell me: who was signing off these invoices when they came in? Why didn’t that person question any of them? All the details were there.
Whoever that person was really isn’t fit for any sort of responsibility over public finances, wouldn’t you agree?
And tell me: don’t you think it’s a scandal that Ohid was taking taxis in the first place? Or do you think he thought they were free? Do you have any concerns about this sort of mentality?
I don’t think hiring cabs is a particularly heinous crime.
I mean, I’ve hardly ever used them. But I see a lot of them about, on the streets of London, so enough people seem to like them.
If you’re asking about whether ratepayers should foot the bill, that’s another matter.
I don’t think it would be particularly unreasonable if his duties took him from a meeting immediately beforehand to representing the borough at this event in Euston.
I mean, Cabinet ministers get ferried about for free and they’re on £120k, so Ohid’s £25k allowance pales in comparison to that. But it’s not ideal, obviously.
I don’t know about you, but I get more excited about things like private schools getting a £100m tax break.
If a cabinet minister was as trigger happy as Ohid was on the cab front, they’d be sacked. Why? Because taxpayers would rightly conclude they were unfit for managing their finances.
If you look at the original post, you’ll see the fare included the return journey to Ohid’s home, so do you think that was reasonable, given we know the event finished mid evening?
You haven’t answered the question about the person signing off the invoices.
Ted if you think you be a better politician or council officers why don’t you quit your job and take up any of these roles. It’s all well and good being at the other end criticising people but wonder how many cock ups you make in your job that some sad looney writes about everyday. Your sounding more and more like Peter Golds each day, worried about the small detail but yet can’t be bothered to deal with the bigger picture like what this Tory Gov Welfare Reform will do to thousands of families in Tower Hamlets or do you think the £140 cab bill could be the saviour. More importanly the MPs expense scandal highlighted many MPs claiming ridiculous amounts of money from the tax payer for horse shit n other things and yet how much have ou written about them. lets not forget they are all paid full-time salary. This is not to defend the Mayor, any cllrs or MPs but if your interested in exposing waste by public officials do it across the board for all not just black officials, or would that be saying you might be unfairly treating black polictians? How about doing a piece on £10m spent by the Tory government on Thathers funereal and ask Golds to justify that or ask him how can justify his Government ripping up poor families in constituency?
Mr Barnes, you are indulging in ” whataboutism”. Deal with this issue and not other unrelated ones. Your advice for aTed to stand for elected office is as ridiculous as the rest of your arguments especially in view of the fact that the entire electoral process in Tower Hamlets has been bought by Lutfur Rahman. Maybe he has bought you as well.
Ted would make a much better local mayor than the despicable Lutfur. But then, so would my four-year-old niece, Old Flo (the Henry Moore sculpture) or indeed my long-dead labrador dog. (And that’s a reflection on Rahman’s abilities, not Ted’s.)
Well this is a scandalous waste of money. Perhaps it’s time we had politicians who’s honour and value didn’t predicate on their method of transport. We need more politicians who are about making a difference in this Borough with high levels of poverty rather than wasting ratepayer money on propping up their presumed self importance. The politicians that I really admire are ones that are modest in words and behaviour, though these are rare creatures. All politicians should have their transport allowances capped at £300 per year. And somebody ought to really look into getting a better deal for the council. More transparent government!
What a lot of drivel written by Lutfur apologists Zak, Oldford 1 and John Barnes. The argument seems to be “It is OK for Ohid, Lutfur and other elected representatives to rip off Tower Hamlets council taxpayers because other people are doing things which are even worse.” What sort of excuse is that? These people want us to re-elect them next year, and are accountable for their actions. We are also paying the salaries of Murzeline Parchment and any other officials who seem so happy to agree to these unethical practices.
The contributors also ask Ted to stand for office or to deal with other issues – that is not his job, he is a journalist, and this blog is focused on Tower Hamlets. Neither is Peter Golds responsible for Thatcher’s funeral.
Furthermore, I can’t see what Lutfur’s administration has done to help the poor about whom John Barnes appears to be so concerned. If anything substantial has been achieved, please let me know.
There still seems to be some speculation on how a return mini-cab trip to the Euston Road could total up to £140. Isn’t it fairly clear that the driver was asked to wait while Ohid Ahmed partied with his former Labour Party cronies (he came a poor third for Labour in West Suffolk in 2010). This seems to have been the assumed reason for other examples of taxi-cab misuse, so why not in this case. Ohid needs to explain himself as soon as possible.
How do I apply to be a cab driver for the town hall? It appears to be raining money down there….
This is pure speculation but I’ve taken cabs back from work events before and when I’ve got to my door I’ve asked for a receipt and the cabby, for whatever reason, has scribbled his initials on the bottom of three receipts and handed them to me blank and added ‘fill them in yourself’.
Now I only ever claimed for what I was due but it does leave the door open to those who might be less scrupulous to abuse the system by filling in whatever figure they like on a legitimate taxi receipt and claiming for it.
I’m certainly not saying that this has happened here or in any other case. But certainly I’ve experienced it with taxis and I wonder if anyone else has.
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[…] chief legal officer, nor what I’m supposed to have removed. I think he’s referring to this post in which I said, “Quite why going to a BME event allows you to steal from the taxpayer is […]