Annex 9
E-mail to the Parliamentary Commissioner
for Standards from Mr Paul Gosling
Thank you for your letter of 24 May.
RE: CONTROL
SECURITIES LTD
I think it is wrong to say, as the letter from
Mr Qayyum suggests, that would be easy to identify Control Securities
Ltd from the tag "Control Ltd". People within the company
or within BCCI may have known of it in that way, but the general
public—myself included—did not. Indeed, I only established
that it was the same company by speaking to the press officer
for the successor company who needed to look at the Company's
accounts for me.
I never suggested that Control Securities was
a creditor of BCCI, nor that Mr Virani was a director or shareholder
of BCCI. My understanding, based on press reports, was that Virani
was convicted of false accounting in relation to his company's
financial transactions with BCCI. This provided him with a financial
relationship with BCCI. It seems to me that someone in receipt
of a donation from Control Securities which had a financial relationship—of
an improper kind, moreover—with BCCI should have disclosed
this when dealing with the affairs of BCCI in the House of Commons.
RE: LABOUR
PARTY FINANCES
I was joint auditor of Leicester East Labour
Party for one year, I think in 1990—though it could have
been a year or so different. I would need to look at my records.
I and my co-auditor refused to approve the accounts as a true
record in one year for several reasons—again I would need
to look at my records to verify this—but I know that one
reason was that we were not given sight of the membership list,
could therefore not confirm the amount of income the constituency
party should have had and therefore could not confirm the accounts
to be a true and fair record. Membership income will normally
be the main source of income for a constituency party.
It is certainly true that I received allegation
about donations, but I need to know the terms on which I submit
allegations as I have no wish to be involved in a libel action
because I pass on allegations that I cannot prove.
29 May 2000
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