By Gavin Mackintosh –
Croydon Council leader Hamida Ali , has been asked to resign over reports of financial wastage.
The call was made from a councillor in her own party in the wake of a damning report on Fairfield Halls. Labour councillor, Andrew Pelling, said Hamida Ali should step down if she can’t prove she asked questions about the overspend in the Fairfield Halls refurbishment.
A report in the public interest carried out by the council’s independent auditors Grant Thornton was published last week. It slammed the council for the project’s management which went £37.5 million over budget.
Council leader Ali has been a councillor since 2014 and was a cabinet member from 2016 until she became leader in October 2020. She time in power has been charcterized by nightmare after nightmare.
Councillor Pelling said: “If [Cllr Ali] cannot prove that she asked the questions when she was in Newman’s cabinet she should stand down. I have a strong feeling she did not pose the questions. I don’t think that saying we were not given the information is good enough, one of the skills of cabinet is asking the right questions. It was commonly known in the town that the project was grossly overspending.”
Following the call for Ali’s resignation, Cllr Pelling was excluded from a Croydon Labour campaign group by Val Shawcross, the party’s candidate for Croydon mayor.
Ms Shawcross claims the exclusion was connected to questions over whether he plans to run for the Labour Party or as an independent in the council elections or Croydon’s mayoral elections. She said: “The things Andrew puts out on his Facebook and Twitter creates questions about whether or not he wants to be with us in this campaign.
Cllr Ali said she only became aware of the “full problems” with the Fairfield Halls refurbishment when she became leader and “quickly raised concerns” with the auditor which led to the report. She said: “Part of the problem the auditor found was information wasn’t shared and councilors weren’t made aware of the true costs of the refurbishment, that included cabinet members. My focus as leader has been on rebuilding the council and putting measures in place to ensure nothing like this could ever happen again.”
Ali has acknowledged the anger across Croydon over wasted cash not safeguarded in the way it should have been, and has apologized for it. Her apology is not enough to calm the angry minds at the sheer incompetence that has taking place under her authority.
She recently praised the council’s new race and equality pledge, aimed at uniting everyone in Croydon against racism and discrimination, following revelations in 2021 that residents of Croydon council had suffered racism in the hands of council members.
However, the failings of Croydon council are far beyond that. They extend to wide ranging incompetence, broad corruption which has led to numerous resignations of highly placed executives and councilors in the past year. High debts and persistent neglect of its duties, has made the council one of the worst ever in the Uk.
After a documentary by ITV in 2021, it was thought that the council would wake up and take the drastic steps necessary to improve its image, but it continued along the same backward trend of inaction and wastage, with many of its established fat cats paving the way for their friends to have high posts.
The time has probably come for Ali to consider her position and join others who have left the rotten council, and go elsewhere. Croydon council needs fresh minds and a fresh vision that can save it from the almost irreversible mess it has found itself in.