Friday 22 May 2009

Woman On A Raft explains how it's done:

WOAR had a closer look at Dry-Rot Moran's money-laundering in the comments here, for which she (Moran, not WOAR) awarded herself "Woman Of The Year In Public Life".

The FT explained the machinations in more detail yesterday:

The FT has further discovered that Ms Moran used her Commons staff to work for Equality Networks (EQN), a non-profit group of which she is the non-remunerated chair. Michael Booker, her fiancé, is one of two company directors. The company, which states its profit “goes back into regeneration, jobs and skills to some of the most deprived communities in the UK”, offers services including research, training and “influencing”, defined as “legislative advice, relationship building and arranging meetings to parliamentary receptions or political briefings”...

When EQN bids for funding were unsuccessful, Ms Moran repeatedly used Commons-headed paper to intervene with local authorities and Whitehall departments to express her “concern and amazement”. EQN received grants in 2008 from public bodies including £10,000 from Luton Borough Council for local regeneration funding, and £20,000 from the East of England Development Agency’s Investing in Communities programme for a “feasibility study” into a local women’s business centre...

In 2007, Ms Moran claimed £6,052.49 expenses from EQN itself. Another EQN director, Nicholas Murray, asked Ms Moran to include more receipts with her invoice. She replied that she had lost many of them.


Now, guess who carried out the feasibility study ...

3 comments:

dearieme said...

Now this is far more interesting than billing for a phantom mortgage, or for Council Tax that wasn't paid: that's just naively corrupt. This speaks of deep-dyed wickedness.

Mark Wadsworth said...

D, exactly, this is a fine example of the £65 billion-a-year quango 'industry', compared to which the few £ million that MPs spent on duck islands and second homes pales into insignificance.

Dr Evil said...

Jaysus. She should be toast. I do hope she is deselected by her local party wonks otherwise she will be blased at the polls next time. Voters are not as stupid as these cretins would like us to be.