Derby councillors face questions over taxi controversies tomorrowA Derby councillor will be asked to explain himself after allegations he used council note paper to send a letter backing two taxi drivers accused of drugs offences.
Gulfraz Nawaz is to appear before Derby City Council's standards committee tomorrow to answer the accusation. A council report said two taxi drivers licenced by the city appeared in court charged with supplying cannabis and were convicted.
The report said it was "understood", Mr Nawaz sent a reference for them "on council letterhead". It says that the issue would be the "use of the council letterhead without prior approval", which would have made his comments appear officially-sanctioned by the council.
The report says: "The monitoring officer [Janie Berry] has suspended all references being sent out using council letterheads without prior approval." Mr Nawaz said he would not speak about the issue before tomorrow's decision but that he would do so afterwards.
Another taxi driver-related complaint will be dealt with by the same committee.
It involves an allegation from a cabbie about councillor Jangir khan, who represents Normanton. The driver said Mr Khan was on a committee that stripped him of his taxi licence, when he should not have been so as he was a family friend, and should have declared an interest.
The cabbie argued the infringement meant the decision to take away his licence should be overturned, although magistrates disagreed.
The report says Mr Khan had said he was not a close family friend and that he undertook careful checks to ensure he didn't have a conflict of interest when it came to making taxi decisions.
Both issues have come to light in the wake of a damning auditors' report that found a number of problems with the way the council was being run. It discovered that, as recently as last year, drivers with criminal records were being allowed licences despite not being "fit and proper" people to hold them.
Eight councillors have been referred to the standards committee by council leader Ranjit Banwait in relation to alleged breaches of the council's code of conduct referred to in the report. Four of them were also referred by Conservative opposition councillor Chris Poulter.
Councillor's Ranjit Banwait and Chris Poulter have also referred fellow members to the standards committee
Though tomorrow's standards committee meeting will be held in public, it is still not yet known whether the other referrals by Mr Banwait and Mr Poulter will be.
Mrs Berry said: "An investigation is underway and it's premature to comment at this stage."
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