Wafic Saïd, the billionaire philanthropist and arms deal fixer, is considering legal action against Barclays after the bank forced him to close his personal accounts and those associated with his charities and business ventures.
Saïd, who fled Syria in 1963 to escape a military coup, accused Barclays of using him as a scapegoat to improve its own reputation after being told in December that he was no longer wanted as a customer.
PR company Bell Pottinger, run by Margaret Thatcher’s former adviser Lord Bell, issued a statement on his behalf on Friday: “Mr Saïd has been advised by leading counsel to issue proceedings against Barclays.”
The claim could be made under the data protection act as the bank would not tell Saïd the reasons for its concerns.
Barclays said: “We never comment on these matters because of client confidentiality. We treat each case on individual merit.”
Wafic Saïd pictured in 2002.
Wafic Saïd pictured in 2002. Photograph: Tim Ockenden/EMPICS
Saïd - whose family donates to the Conservative party – may have to find new bankers for his charity, the Saïd Foundation, which has its head office close to close to Buckingham Palace and lists Sir Michael Peat, former private secretary to the Prince of Wales, as one of its trustees.
The Foundation, according to its website, helps children and young people with disabilities in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan, and backs the Saïd business school at Oxford University.
The 76-year-old is credited with helping Saudi Arabia buy British weapons in 1985 in the biggest arms deal in history, known as Al-Yamamah. An investigation by the Serious Fraud Office investigation into allegations that BAE had paid bribes to Saudi princes to win lucrative contracts was abandoned at the intervention of the then prime minister Tony Blair.
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Now based in Paris, Saïd has moved his personal account, as has his English-born wife, Rosemary, and two children.
The statement issued through Bell Pottinger said: “Despite high-level meetings and several requests, formal and informal, Mr Saïd was given no legal reason or justification for the bank’s action. Indeed they told his representative that if, for example, someone had an address in Brazil the bank would close their accounts.
“It appears that Mr Saïd and his charities are being used as scapegoats by Barclays to try to improve their own reputation. Mr Saïd enjoys excellent relationships with a number of leading international banks, none of which has ever expressed concerns regarding the provenance of Mr Saïd’s funds.”
The bank is thought to have been concerned it could not satisfy regulators about its anti-money laundering procedures. Barclays – which is scrambling to restore its reputation in the wake of fines for rigging Libor and foreign exchange markets – was last year fined £72m by the Financial Conduct Authority for running the risk of being used to launder money or finance terrorism.
Saïd is “taking every action possible to ensure his charities are protected and do not suffer financially as a result of Barclays’ actions and he much regrets this irrational and irresponsible behaviour by the bank,” he said in the statement.
“His charitable activities, which enjoy the full support of the Charity Commission, donate close to £7m each year to UK and overseas causes,” the statement said.
Oxford University said finances of the business school were “entirely secure”. No one at the foundation would comment.
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Regulators have been tightening up their approach to the money laundering rules. Last year, HSBC faced criticism for closing accounts of charities. Its chairman, Douglas Flint, has warned that the risk of fines was making banks risk averse.
Asheem Singh, director of public policy at charity leaders group ACEVO, said he would be writing to Barclays. “The surest way to guarantee fraud or worse terrorist activity is to force humanitarian organisations to carry cash which may be misappropriated by dark forces running riot in areas of conflict and great human need,” said Singh.
“Banks may do more harm than good by zealously denying essential financial services. We respect that each case has its own individual circumstance but we will be writing to the head of Barclays bank to seek assurance that such cases are being decided on the basis of rigorous, impartial and unimpeachable protocols and that the moral dilemmas for charities operating in conflict zones are properly understood. The obverse would be damaging for all of us,” Singh added.
Oxford University said: “The [Saïd] School is an academic department of the University of Oxford and its funding is derived from numerous sources which include research funding and student fees.
“The Saïd Foundation now provides charitable grants to support a range of initiatives to advance the school’s strategic objectives, including scholarships for students, awards for innovation in teaching, key School events and new approaches to career support for students. We are grateful to the foundation for its support and we look forward to this continuing.”
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JAMB Grants Opportunity For Candidates Who Missed CBT Exams
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has agreed to reschedule examination for candidates who missed the UTME,CBT exams due to the relocation of centres by the board.
Following the board’s relocation of 59,000 candidates in 15 states because of problems in some of the centres which cost them the exam, the affected candidates had carried out series of protests in some states of the country against the examination body.
Professor Dibu Ojerinde who is the registrar of the board disclosed this while speaking at a press conference in Abuja on Friday, he assured that candidates who had system failure during the examination would retake it, if the board finds their complaint to be genuine.
His words: “We relocated about 59, 000 candidates due to the problems in various centres which vary from town to town. There are about 59,000 of them spread across 15 states of the federation.
“Those that were relocated never suffered any setback or inconvenience. For all these two sets of people, I want to apologise sincerely for what happened to them, but we are going to put on a redress for those whose relocation affected them in missing their examination.”
According to him, the new development does not affect candidates who missed the examination deliberately or failed in the examination, he said among the 1,546,633 candidates who sat for the 2016 UTME, 145, 704 had issues of multiple results which have been resolved by the board.
“Going back to the Paper and Pencil Test will amount to taking one step forward and two steps backwards,” the JAMB boss stated
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Twitter’s New Timeline Is Now On
Twitter’s new timeline which displays tweets based on importance rather than chronology is now the default setting for all users.
Twitter rolled out the feature in February, but it was initially opt-in. Now, however, reports are emerging that the company has gone and made it the law of the land, notifying users with a message when they first sign on.
In the blog post first announcing the change, the company noted, “We will be turning on the feature for you in coming weeks, look out for a notification in your timeline.”
Simply go to your account settings, scroll down until you reach the “timeline” section, and uncheck the box that says “show me the best Tweets first.”
Reports gathered that some users appear not to have received the notification in their timeline, and that the setting was turned on anyway. But a Twitter spokesman said “As we said in our announcement, we are rolling out our timeline improvements to everyone over time. People can still choose to opt out of it in their settings.”
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Another Lion Escapes From Kenyan Zoo, Attacks Man
A lion escaped from a park and mauled a man in Nairobi — the latest incident of big cats straying into the bustling Kenyan capital
CNN reports that the man is undergoing treatment for his injuries, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service.
It tweeted Friday that its units have “taken control” of the lion and returned it to the Nairobi National Park.
Video posted on social media showed a black-maned lion sauntering down one of the city’s busiest streets.
It later disappears from camera view as motorists honk wildly and shout that it’s jumped on a man.
This is the fourth time in recent weeks lions have escaped from the park that sits on the edge of Nairobi, Kenyan media reported.
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Rivers Re-run: Accreditation, Voting Commence
Accreditation and voting have begun in three senatorial districts, 12 federal constituencies and 22 state constituencies in Rivers State.
Sensitive materials for the re-run polls were delivered at the state headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Port Harcourt on Friday.
Sorting and distribution have been done at the different senatorial zones and constituencies in all 23 local government areas in the state.
INEC recruited the services of 24,930 adhoc staff, 379 collation officers and 37 returning officers for the rerun elections.
The electoral body is conducting the re-run in compliance with the verdict of State Election Petition Tribunal which nullified the earlier polls.
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Iain Duncan Smith resigns from cabinet over disability cuts
Iain Duncan Smith has resigned as work and pensions secretary over cuts to disability benefits, in the most dramatic cabinet departure of David Cameron’s leadership.
In a sign that divisions over Europe have heightened tensions in the Conservatives, the former party leader stormed out of his job, saying he thought the cuts to welfare for disabled people known as personal independence payments (PIP) were a “compromise too far”.
The Guardian view on Iain Duncan Smith: a very political resignation
The welfare secretary brims with zeal. But the quiet man mostly stayed silent while the poor suffered. He makes noise now the chancellor is weak
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Duncan Smith, who is campaigning to leave the EU in opposition to Downing Street, said he had too often felt under pressure to make huge welfare savings before a budget in a stinging critique of George Osborne’s entire approach to reducing the deficit.
In a direct attack on Osborne and a blow to the chancellor’s hopes of becoming the next Tory leader, Duncan Smith said the disability cuts were defensible in narrow terms of deficit reduction but not “in the way they were placed in a budget that benefits higher earning taxpayers”.
He said he was stepping down because Osborne’s cuts were for self-imposed political reasons rather than in the national economic interest.
Iain Duncan Smith pictured at Downing Street in February.
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Iain Duncan Smith pictured at Downing Street in February. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images
“I am unable to watch passively while certain policies are enacted in order to meet the fiscal self-imposed restraints that I believe are more and more perceived as distinctly political rather than in the national economic interest,” Duncan Smith wrote in a resignation letter to Cameron.
“Too often my team and I will have been pressured in the immediate run-up to a budget or fiscal event to deliver yet more reductions to the working age benefit bill. There has been too much emphasis on money saving exercises and not enough awareness from the Treasury, in particular, that the government’s vision of a new welfare-to-work system could not repeatedly be salami-sliced.”
Cameron ‘puzzled and disappointed’
Downing Street immediately attempted to portray the Duncan Smith’s resignation as consequence of the cabinet minister’s strong opposition to Cameron over Europe.
Cameron replied to his letter saying he was “puzzled and disappointed” by the cabinet minister’s decision to resign, saying the disability benefit cuts had been “collectively agreed” between Duncan Smith, No 10 and the Treasury before being announced a week ago.
The resignation leaves a hole in the Department of Work and Pensions that Downing Street will want to fill with a pro-EU loyalist. There had been talk inside DWP that Duncan Smith would be reshuffled after the referendum and that Matt Hancock – Osborne’s own protege – would replace him, although such a move could irritate out campaigners.
“There were discussions at the top level and we had decided this,” said a senior government source, who argued that Duncan Smith had – only on Friday – written a “dear colleague” letter to MPs defending the policy.
It is clear that Downing Street and the Treasury have been irritated by Duncan Smith’s interventions over the EU, not least his dismissal of government publications as “dodgy dossiers”. The work and pensions secretary is known to have been unhappy about his officials being cut out of policy discussions related to the EU referendum.
'A compromise too far': Iain Duncan Smith's resignation letter in full
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But sources close to Duncan Smith said he had longstanding concerns about the government’s approach to welfare and was particularly unhappy with the “arbitrary” promise to cut £12bn from the welfare budget before the election.
There was also irritation that the Treasury had sought to paint the disability benefit cuts as a DWP policy and not a budget measure approved by Osborne, saving the Treasury £4.5bn over the course of this parliament.
Questions over Osborne
Osborne has long been seen as Cameron’s successor but the growing questions over the budget will remind backbenchers of the notorious “omnishambles” of 2012, when he was forced to reverse a series of planned stealth taxes, on everything from pasties to caravans – and was criticised for cutting the 50p top rate of tax, benefiting the highest earners.
George Osborne delivering his Budget statement to the House of Commons.
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George Osborne delivering his Budget statement to the House of Commons. Photograph: Jessica Taylor/UK Parliament/PA
He is seen increasingly by Tory backbenchers as having made too many unforced political errors, including having to reverse plans to cut tax credits, welcoming Google’s underwhelming tax deal with the UK, backtracking on pension reforms, and unsuccessfully trying to bring in Sunday trading.
Some of Osborne’s Eurosceptic colleagues argue that he has been so focused on managing what they deride as “Project Fear” – the campaign to keep Britain in the EU – that he failed to devote enough attention to laying the political groundwork for his budget.
On Friday night, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called for Osborne to resign as well, saying the chancellor has “lost the credibility to manage the economy in the interests of the majority of our people”.
“The chancellor has failed the British people. He should follow the honourable course taken by Iain Duncan Smith and resign,” he said.
Duncan Smith’s resignation comes in the context of his Euroscepticism in opposition to Downing Street but also longstanding bad political blood with Osborne.
The senior cabinet minister’s resignation letter went wider than a rejection of the disability benefit cuts into a stinging critique of the Treasury’s zeal for welfare reductions for the purpose of saving money, dealing a blow to Osborne’s arguments that they are necessary to bring down Britain’s national debt.
The cuts to PIP were announced by the Department of Work and Pensions a week ago but confirmed in Osborne’s budget and defended by Downing Street until Friday.
Downing Street initially said it “remained committed” to the changes, but at a press conference in Brussels, Cameron suggested he was prepared to soften the cuts.
David Cameron arrives for a European summit in Brussels.
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David Cameron arrives for a European summit in Brussels. Photograph: Isopix/REX/Shutterstock
Asked by the Guardian about concerns among his MPs and disability charities, the prime minister said: “A number of reviews have been done, a lot of work has been done and that is why these proposals have been put forward. As the chancellor said, but I will repeat, we will be discussing this with disability charities and others and make sure we get this right.”
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The Treasury then executed a full U-turn, with a government source saying: “This is going to be kicked into the long grass. We need to take time and get reforms right, and that will mean looking again at these proposals.
“We are not wedded to specific sums … it’s not an integral part of the budget.”
The pause in the plans is a humiliating blow for the chancellor, on top of Duncan Smith’s resignation, as Osborne had hoped to use his eighth budget on Wednesday to burnish his credentials for the Conservative leadership.
The Treasury stressed the figures included in the budget were the DWP’s work; but DWP insiders had complained that they were bounced into publishing the proposals without the time to build support.
A significant number of backbench Conservatives have now turned their fire on Osborne over what they see as the toxic politics of the budget, which juxtaposed the PIP cuts with tax giveaways for businesses and higher earners.
These include Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the Commons health committee and a former GP, who tweeted that the government would “never meet approval for change that would reduce entitlement to PIP at the same time as raising the higher rate tax threshold”. David Burrowes, the Tory MP for Enfield Southgate, urged the government to “press pause”.
Analysis Is Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation about disability cuts – or Europe?
Duncan Smith defended the cuts to disability benefits on Thursday – so what has driven his dramatic resignation and change of heart?
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Amid attempts by the Treasury to distance itself from the PIP cuts, Owen Smith, Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “It is ludicrous for the Tories to pretend that this was anything other than a major part of Wednesday’s budget.
“If the Tories are now postponing or cancelling these cruel cuts altogether it is a humiliating climbdown for George Osborne, although it will come as an incredibly welcome reprieve for hundreds of thousands of disabled people who were due to be affected.”
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the cuts, which help people pay for the costs of living with a disability, would hit 370,000 people, with an average loss of £3,500 a year.
Osborne insisted on Friday night that the government would “protect the most vulnerable” and ensure that it got the proposals “absolutely right”. But there were rumblings among Conservative backbenchers that the anger unleashed by the disability cuts had won new converts to the “Anything But George” campaign that is seeking an alternative to Osborne as a potential future leader Thanks for reading.
Rivers Re-run: Come Out And Vote, Peterside Urges APC Supporters
Dr Dakuku Peterside, Director-General, Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), has called on the Rivers State supporters of the All Progressive Congress (APC) to come out and exercise their franchise.
He also urged the people not to be intimidated by any individual or group from voting in the elections.
Peterside told newsmen in Port Harcourt on Friday that the era of intimidating the people to manipulate the electoral system was gone.
“The Federal Government has assured of adequate security during the re-run elections on Saturday. Nobody should feel intimidated and I urge the people to go out and vote for their candidates. There is nothing to fear because security agencies are there to protect you.
“Our people were intimidated and scared to come out to vote last year; that fear is still there, but we urge them that there is nothing to fear. That era is gone; government has provided security for the election,” he said. Thanks for reading.
