Wednesday 19 August 2009

Pleasurama. Swiss Hit-n-Miss

What are they doing? TDC’s Brian and Richard of the Gang of Four and Pleasurama.

A fireball and hole in the ground for 10 years. And now tax haven companies from the Caribbean to the Continent.

It seems the Pleasurama Directors are now listed as “c/o SBP Banque, Geneva, Switzerland”.

And Essex.

There seems two references to SBP: one with a slightly different address as affiliated to Lehman Bros bank. Which went bust-in-billions last year.

The other with the SBP Banque CEO and Trading Director resigning last month and several irregularities with the Swiss Banking authorities.

There may well be another SBP based in Geneva but they look to be one and the same.

And they’re handling the largest property development in Ramsgate? With Brian and Richard?

And the same or similar SFP Ventures was also listed in the British Virgin Islands and then the UK and now Geneva? And Essex?

And “SFP Ventures” standing for “Site of Former Pleasurama Ventures” it looks like little more than a brass-plate company.

For Ramsgate? With Brian and Richard? Council scrutiny? Reduced bankers bonds.

And coming hard on the heels of the banking crash and clampdown on off-shore and tax havens: Swiss banks already have to provide details of account holders to US authorities, and with the current trial of Zambia’s President Chiluba for money laundering and State corruption and several despots holding billion dollar accounts (as much as £90Bn offshore) it all looks a bit strange.

For a burned down property.

In Ramsgate.

But as with Kent’s largest planning application with ChinaGate and strange developer trips and £25k donations to both Parties and the Tesco bag of receipts, it’s more than a bit strange.

Unless it’s a good old-fashioned bung and hooky deal.

But Brian and Richard are paid over £100k each. Some of the highest public sector salaries in the UK. For running a £20M District Council.

Surely not. I don’t think so. But it’s very silly either way.

Looks like monopoly serivces and monopoly money.

And the same team were involved in Wiggins/Planestation which went bust at Manston with a multi-million accounting fraud. And EUJet collapsed and then went offshore in Eire and now the Isle of Man tax haven.

Is this sensible?

I can’t fathom the EKO mini-council-quango either. It’s listed as £10M of land from KCC and TDC ie public land. Plus another £139k costs. But no other staff costs or details.

Again a bit strange for what is public land. And civil servants and councillors. Why not just create a TDC-KCC team?

If you told me I wouldn’t believe any of this. In Britain. In Kent. In the 21st century?

Is this how it is?

With another low-level MK jet flying over the centre of Ramsgate from Ostend cargo airport spewing out pollution in breach of Brian’s 106 and the noise monitors with no monitors is it really sensible for the council to be involved in Swiss deals, China deals and New Zealand airport companies?

I admire young Matt Clarke for flannelling on cargo and the like: it’s as if Manston is superb rather than a dead duck – but it’s all fun and games until a child loses a lung or a jet crashes.

And he’s in jail. His Directors won't be any use to him then will they?

Because Infratil didn’t want to pay for air monitors. Nor radar. And the council didn’t want to enforce their own 106. At an airport slated for expansion.

No monitors. No data. No problem.

What has been going on?

Poisoned water.

The highest lung cancer rate in Kent.

Repeated 106 breaches.

Are the civil servant running rings round the councillors or are the councillors steering the civil servants?

Does Canterbury council do this?

Deal?

Dover?

Essex?

Geneva?

Zambia does.

How low we have fallen.

Mistakes happen. This just seems wilful incompetence and deceit.

All on public time. Public expenses. Public salaries. Public pensions.

Just embarrassing now.

Where are Sandy and Roger on this? Where are the Cabinet? Where are the 56 Councillors?

Silence.

And where are Messrs Gale and Ladyman and Sandys?

Silence.

Don’t MP’s get involved in governance in their constituencies? No regeneration projects? No town funding? No central government support? No questions on quangos? No questions on Infratil? None for Thor? None for the Environment Agency?

And if a jumbo jet crashes or lung cancer increases or the water pollution increases because Richard and Brian were messing about with Caribbean tax havens and ChinaGate show-trials?

As MP I will:

# Close Manston
# Instigate Manston Water Park to protect and replenish the polluted water supply
# Regenerate a cleaned Richboro and Pegwell as a “Pharma Corridor”
# Jail the Infratil Directors for breaches of public safety and ban Infratil from Europe
# Axe Chinagate: all phases
# Axe Old Pleasurama and SFP/SBP
# Instigate a Kent Protocol banning all tax havens, offshore companies and quangos of councillors and civil servants within Kent and UK
# Publish details of all shares, bonds and pensions investments with a UN-Kent Ethical Protocol of arms, tobacco, embargo corporations: a disgrace that KCC is investing in tobacco and Total Burma firms
# A Civil Service Efficiency Protocol to recharge costs from council tax and Treasury funds for waste and inefficiencies in the Civil Service: a 6 month limit on moving a project from Planning into Delivery
# Special Measures for TDC to move to Excellence Governance within 2 years – as rated by the AC and Public oversight committee
# Instigate Councillor and Civil Service exams
# TDC and KCC to lead UK councils in adopting the UN Millennium Development Goals Principles and Practice

Failed. Failed. Failed.

Change for Thanet. Change for Kent.

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