by Les May
IT
would not be reasonable to expect John Leech to be fully aware of why
the response of Councillor Kelly and the other Liberal Democrats to
the electoral fraud by Councillor Faisal Rana is considered to be
wholly inadequate. So I will provide some background.
This
is what I wrote in the period just before the council meeting which
was asked to consider the matter.
After
I had been informed that he had written to the Chief Executive I
wrote.
Writing
to the Chief Executive, or in the case of the Conservatives, putting
down a motion, is the equivalent of what I would call ‘Resolutionary
Socialism’.
You pass a resolution and expect it to change the world. It
doesn’t, it’s
just the lazy way of appearing to do something.
In
particular I would like to draw attention to the following passage in
what I wrote which was taken from the Pickles’
review into electoral fraud, Securing
the Ballot
‘Electoral
fraud and corruption is intertwined with other forms of crime as
well. Local authorities have a large procurement role. A group of
people who cheat their way to power are unlikely to hold a higher
moral standard when handing out public contracts, or when making
quasi-judicial decision on planning and licensing. Electoral
registration fraud is connected with financial crime
and illegal immigration.’
In
view of the above the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives ought
to be protesting loud and long and often, that a self confessed
electoral fraudster has been given any
responsibility for finance in the town. They
are not.
Unfortunately
in Rochdale it isn’t only fellow councillors who turn a blind eye
to improper behaviour by one of their number. We have council
officers who will do anything to avoid admitting that they turned a
blind eye to the fact that Councillor Rana failed to declare his
interests within the 28 day period after his election, as
he was required to do.
This
is what the guidance to councillors from the Department
for Communities and Local Government
says:
When
you are first elected, co-opted, or appointed a member to your
council or authority, you must, within 28 days of becoming a member,
tell the monitoring officer who is responsible for your council’s
or authority’s register of members’ interests about your
disclosable pecuniary interests.
Note
the word ‘must’,
it could not be clearer could it? Rana did not do it, and the
Monitoring Officer
turned a blind eye. What sort of a town do we live in?
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