International
It's Keith Vaz again
By Hasan Suroor
LONDON, DEC. 24. It is a story that refuses to go away even as the man, around whom it centres, has been in political wilderness for months now.
The business links of Mr. Keith Vaz, the Asian MP from Leicester who lost his job in the Blair Government after a vicious media campaign, have come to haunt him again following a fresh ``leak'' from the parliamentary watchdog, Ms. Elizabeth Filkin, who has been having a running battle with him in the course of her inquiry into his financial affairs.
In what is seen as her last gasp before she quits her own job shortly amid a controversy, Ms. Filkin has alleged ``collusion'' between Mr. Vaz and his wife, Ms. Maria Fernandes, to `conceal'' facts about a payment from the Hindujas. The amount was paltry, and according to Ms. Filkin herself Mr. Vaz got ``no direct personal benefit''. Nor, she acknowledges, was he obliged to disclose them in the register of MPs' interests - a log book in which MPs must disclose all their extra-parliamentary earnings. What, then, is the fuss about?
Ms. Filkin is a hair-splitter and, in her report, she says he should have been more upfront about the fact that payment which his wife received for helping the Hindujas with legal advice on immigration issues were ``linked'' to the cases which he was pursuing before he became a Minister in 1999. In other words, since his wife took over where he left there was a ``link'' between the payment received by her law firm and Mr. Vaz, according to her. ``It is clear to me that there has been a deliberate collusion, over many months, between Mr. Vaz and his wife to conceal this fact and to prevent me from obtaining accurate information about his possible financial relationship with the Hinduja family,'' Ms. Filkin has been quoted as saying.
Her report, widely publicised in the media today, is to be discussed by the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee which can reject it. Mr. Vaz told The Sunday Times that similar allegations had been made in the past and his wife was ``pursuing legal proceedings''. He declined to comment on Ms. Filkin's report saying:``There's a draft memorandum. It's not a report. I'm not commenting on it.''
The newspaper said Ms. Filkin's report was based on information she independently got from the Hindujas. ``According to information provided by the Hinduja brothers, from early 2000 Mr. Vaz's wife, Ms. Fernandes, was receiving payments from their business for immigration work carried out by her in 1999 or earlier....Mr. Vaz was linked to the payments the Hinduja brothers made to Ms. Fernandes Vaz even though he may have received no direct personal benefit...Whether or not Mr. Vaz was involved in a direct financial relationship with them (the Hindujas), he made use of his role as a member of Parliament to make representations to the immigration service and home office ministers on their behalf. It is likely that Mr. Vaz thereby assisted his wife's business commercially,'' it says.
This is the latest in a series of encounters between Mr. Vaz and Ms. Filkin who in an earlier report accused him of ``obstructing'' her investigations into another set of allegations relating to his business links. Ms. Filkin, who herself has been accused of exceeding her brief, is to quit her job in February as she has been refused an automatic second term. She has blamed this on a ``whispering campaign'' by MPs many of whom believed that her style - obsession with detail, tendency to leak reports to the media - had damaged too many reputations and undermined confidence in MPs.
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