Rehana Ameer, Henry Jones & Munsur Ali, Their Registers Of Interest & Public Complaints

On 30 April 2024 the City of London Corporation’s Panel of Independent Persons met to assess a complaint by a member of the public who had raised the issue of late disclosure in the Registers of Interests entries by Rehana Ameer and Henry Jones. 

Corporation Chief Solicitor, Edward Wood, told members of the Panel that the “crux of the grievance” was around the Aldgate Estate Residents Association and the Aldgate Estate was not managed by the City of London Corporation but by the Guinness Housing Association. He suggested that the two members named in the complaint were therefore not acting in their capacity as Corporation Members and were not subject to the City of London Corporation standards regime. The Aldgate Estate AKA Guinness Trust Housing Estate: Mansell Street is in the City of London ward of Portsoken, which Jones represents; and Vintry, which Ameer represents, is – like all City wards – in walking distance of it.

Just before the accidental livestream of the meeting was abruptly curtailed (and access to view it was blocked), a Panel member commented “we’ve seen they have declared them, but only in the last couple of weeks, so obviously this complaint has prompted them to do it”. 

We had noticed Cllr Ameer updated her Register of Interests on 4th April, 2024, and we wondered what had prompted her to do this. Her Register of Interests had not been updated since 20th April, 2017, when she became an elected Member for Vintry Ward.

Similarly, Henry Jones updated his Register of Interests on 23 April 2024. It had not been updated since 27 November 2018.

According to the current record on the Corporation’s website, Rehana Ameer sits on the Communications & Corporate Affairs Sub (Policy & Resources) Committee representing the Policy and Resources Committee.  She also serves on the Finance Committee and is Chair of the Freedom Applications Sub (Policy & Resources) Committee.  She represents the City of London Corporation at meetings of the East London NHS Foundation Trust.

Given that Cllr Ameer apparently updated her disclosures in direct response to a complaint about her conduct, it is extremely concerning to discover that her updated Register of Interests does not reflect her current pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests and seems to represent a deliberate attempt to deceive the public and her fellow councillors.  We do not know if this has a any relevance to the substance of the formal complaint under consideration by the Panel of Independent Persons.

However, it is a serious breach of the Members Code of Conduct in any event.

In her Register of Interests, Cllr Ameer claims currently to be a  director of Prosap Technologies Limited and Adam Halal Meat and Fish UK Limited.

Prosap Technologies was renamed Prosap Corporation Limited on 30 August 2017, and Rehana Ameer ceased to be a Person of Significant Control (PSC) and a Director on 24 May 2021.  The sole Director of this company is Cllr Ameer’s husband, and the net assets of the company at year ending February 2023 were  £-263.88k.

On 27 October 2018 Rehana Ameer ceased to be a Director, Company Secretary and PSC of Adam Halal Meat and Fish UK Limited.

Team IT Solutions Limited was dissolved on 19 Sep 2017.  Rehana Ameer was a director of the company before resigning on 11 August 2011, her husband was its other director.

The directors of Great Education Limited are Rehana Ameer and her son and daughter.  At year ending April 2023 net assets were £-41.25k. It is not on the Ameer’s April 24 register of interests.

Great Borders Limited and The Great Foundry Limited have both been dormant since incorporation.  Rehana Ameer is the sole director of both companies

City of London Economic Exchange Limited  was dissolved via compulsory strike-off on 28 November 2023. Cllr Ameer’s co-director was Portsoken councillor Munsur Ali, but he has never disclosed his interest in this company in his City Register of Interests. Rehana Ameer and Munsur Ali had also been co-directors of City Commonwealth Economic Forum Limited (dissolved on 31 December 2019) but neither of them ever included the company in their Registers of Interest, and neither company ever submitted accounts to Companies House before dissolution.

Rehana Ameer resigned as a Trustee of Trust for London Trustee on 1 October 2023

The registered office of  Unicorp Education Limited is at the Enterprise Centre on the University of East Anglia’s campus.  Cllr Ameer’s fellow directors are James Gardiner and Ivan Mitchell, both “Associate Professors” at UEA. Unicorp Education’s website (now removed from the internet) stated its mission was “to deliver high quality, credible learning experiences to people throughout the world via blended or online education” and it states “depending on the course, we may be able to offer the learners a certificate of completion from a university and certified CPD points.  Learners can also have the option to undertake a short piece of assessment that they will receive feedback on”. 

Although she did not officially nominate them, we would be interested to know if, as Chair of the Freedom Applications Sub-Committee, Cllr Ameer declared her interest as a UEA business tenant when the decision was made to award the Freedom of the City of London to Professor Claire Jowitt and Dr Darrell Green from the University of East Anglia on 19 April 2024

Having established that the majority of entries in Cllr Ameer’s current Register of Interests are untrue, we examined the interests which have not been recorded. These are the four companies that she set up in 2023, namely Innovait Medtech Limited, incorporated 27 January 2023, Smart Health Clinics Limited, incorporated 29 June 2023, Centre For Smart Health Research & Innovation UK Limited, incorporated 7 November 2023 and UK India Health Partnership Ltd, incorporated 4 December 2023.

The UK India Health Partnership was set up with lawyer Ajit Mishra; in February 2024 he was awarded the Freedom of the City of London. News Online reported: “Ajit’s nomination for the award came from Chris Hayward… and Shravan Joshi… Rehana Ameer the Chair of the Freedom Applications Committee expressed her congratulations and said that “…This recognition… fosters trust for business…” Cllr Ameer represents the City of London Corporation in the Council of Governors of the East London NHS Foundation Trust.

Another PR opportunity arose on 7 November 2023, when Rehana Ameer had an audience with Kamlesh Patel (known as Daaji in India).

Kanha Shantivanam 7^th November 2023

It was well after 9 a.m. that Daaji went for his morning walk today accompanied by his grandchildren. Later Mrs. Rehana Ameer Banu had an audience with Daaji. Rehana Ameer is the first Indian-born woman to be elected as an Independent Common Councillor in the City of London Corporation’s 950 years of history in March 2017 for Vintry Ward.  Mrs Ameer spoke about her conviction at being able to do her best in this life, however little it may be. She is a very committed person for social good in her several other endeavours, be it as an entrepreneur or in public life.

Later he conducted a meditation session and presented Mrs Rehana Ameer Banu with the book, The Wisdom Bridge.

On 24 April 2024 Kamlesh Desaibhai Patel was awarded Freedom of the City of London.  Described as “a spiritual leader”, he had been nominated  by Cllr Ameer and Cllr Hayward. Kamlesh Patel is best known as a teacher of yoga and meditation, but he also owns pharmaceutical and healthcare companies in India and the USA.  We would be interested to know if Cllr Ameer disclosed that she had received a gift and a photo opportunity from Mr Patel when she nominated him to be awarded the Freedom of the City of London.

Moving on, Cllr. Henry Llewellyn Michael Jones’ Register of Interests refers to his directorship of  a property management company “Holytailor Management”.  This is a mis-spelling of the company Hollytailor Property Management Company Limited. Curiously, Cllr Jones also seems to have forgotten how to spell his name when recording his directorship, which is spelt Henry Llewelly Michael Jones.  The same mis-spelling is used in the Companies House record of the dormant company City of London Dairies Limited, of which he’s been a director since 2011. The company has not been declared in Cllr Jones’ Register of Interests.