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UK’s beleaguered vaccines chief accused of profiting from $65m
of taxpayers’ money steered towards her venture firm
10 Nov, 2020 13:58
FILE PHOTO. Kate Bingham. ©Mike Coppola / Getty Images via AFP
The head of the British government’s Vaccine Taskforce may have personally profited from a $65 million investment of taxpayers’ money into a firm managed by a venture fund in which she holds a managerial post.
The allegation, which was raised by the Guardian newspaper on Tuesday, is the latest in a string of claims of impropriety leveled against Kate Bingham in recent weeks.
The biochemist and venture capitalist became the chair of the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce – a body created to facilitate acquisition and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines – in May. She combines her unpaid job with the government with being a managing partner in the private equity firm SV Health Investors.
In July, SV Health Investors announced that a fund managed by it had received $65 million in investment from British Patient Capital, a subsidiary of the state-owned economic development British Business Bank, so had been funded by taxpayers’ money.
The monies were paid into the SV7 Impact Medicine Fund, which invests in biotech companies. SV Health Investors earned at least £1.9m ($2.5m) in fees for managing the fund in 2019, the Guardian reported, citing paperwork filed with the government’s Companies House service.
“The accounts suggest Bingham, as one of the company’s two managing partners in the UK, receives an annual share of profits generated by SV Health Investors, suggesting she could stand to benefit personally from the performance of the fund,” the report said.
Bingham presumably “stepped away” from her managerial post at SV Health Investors when she took the job at the Vaccine Taskforce. She is set to leave her governmental post at the end of the year, when her contract expires. The Guardian cited a government spokesman as saying that Prime Minister Boris Johnson has full confidence in Bingham.
The vaccines chief is embroiled in two other accusations of improperly blending her public and private work. On November 1, the Times on Sunday accused her of having disclosed sensitive information about the government’s plans for purchasing vaccines during a webinar with investors. Bingham said she had not disclosed anything her audience could not have deduced on their own, based on publicly available information, and called the report “nonsense,”“inaccurate,” and “irresponsible.”
Last week, the same newspaper revealed that Bingham had charged the government £670,000 ($890,000) for the services of Admiral Associates, a PR agency, which has been overseeing her media strategy. She allegedly insisted on hiring the firm, despite concerns it would duplicate the work of public servants, the Times on Sunday said, citing leaked documents.
Liberal MP quits party after it's revealed that her sister worked for her
paid by government funds
MP who left Liberal caucus made offensive remarks and mistreated staff, former employees allege
Ashley Burke · CBC News
Posted: Nov 10, 2020 5:00 PM ET
Four former employees of Toronto MP Yasmin Ratansi — who left the Liberal caucus this week after admitting she employed her sister for years on the public dime — allege she repeatedly made offensive comments and created a "toxic and verbally abusive" environment at her office.
The former staffers say Ratansi mistreated employees by yelling at them, insulting their appearances and publicly ridiculing their work.
"It was like walking on eggshells every single day," said a former employee. "You'd come into work knowing that she was going to yell ... She was going to cut someone down and you just hope it wasn't you."
CBC News agreed to protect the identities of the sources, who say they fear harm to their careers and retaliation by Ratansi herself after speaking out.
Multiple sources said that, when constituents from South Asian communities called about family reunification and immigration cases, Ratansi on some occasions told staff to stop working on some of their files because she felt the individuals involved were "untrustworthy" or suggested they "lied" because of their ethnicity.
After CBC News contacted Ratansi for comment, and to ask why she was employing her sister at the office, the MP announced on Facebook late last night she told the Prime Minister's Office she is leaving the Liberal party. Ratansi acknowledged that she had hired her sister as her constituency assistant — a violation of parliamentary rules — but did not address the claims about her behaviour in the workplace.
"To the constituents of Don Valley East and to anyone I may have disappointed by my error of judgment, I take full responsibility, and to all I do apologize," Ratansi wrote on her Facebook page at 9:38 pm.
Ratansi has not responded to CBC's request for comment submitted on Sunday, despite repeated requests for a response. On Monday night, she said she referred the matter to the Ethics Commissioner last week — after CBC News' investigation began.
MPs have their own operating budgets and are allowed to pay constituency assistants a maximum salary of $89,700 a year, according to the House of Commons. That means Ratansi could have paid her sister up to $269,100 over three years.
The government's chief whip Mark Holland said his "understanding is Ms. Rantasi is disputing" the allegations about her statements and treatment of staff. Now that Ratansi is an Independent MP, he said, it's up to the federal government's Chief Human Resources Officer to "adjudicate" the matter and Holland encouraged employees to report their complaints formally.
"We are absolutely committed to ensuring that all workplaces of all members in our caucus are safe workplaces that are positive, supportive and free of any form of harassment," said Holland, adding that no formal complaints have been filed against Rantasi.
Except for the Governor-General's staff
The Conservatives are calling on Ratansi to resign immediately.
"One thing is clear — Trudeau MPs continue to believe that they are entitled to a different set of rules than average Canadians," said Conservative ethics critic MP Michael Barrett. "That employing their sister with taxpayer dollars is OK, as long as they don't get caught."
This is exactly what I accuse Russians of doing. Tolerating corruption unless you get caught, or you cross somebody more important than you.
Asked about Ratansi hiring her sister, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the case "unacceptable" and lamented the fact that such acts can tarnish the reputation of all MPs.
Not really, just Liberal MPs.
"I am deeply disappointed by the news I learned yesterday from Ms. Ratansi and how she handled the office," he told a press conference. "It is unacceptable and I expect there to be a thorough followup by the House administration on this."
Allegations of racist comments
Ratansi, a backbencher and a trained accountant, became the first Muslim woman elected to the House of Commons in 2004. She lost the seat in 2011 and won it back in 2015. She is currently the chair of the Commons standing committee on the environment.
Several former staff members claim they heard Ratansi casually make comments they considered "racist" by applying stereotypes to Chinese, South Asian and Caribbean constituents and communities.
"She said that there are too many Chinese in [the] riding and [she did not want] any more Chinese," said a former employee. "She also said that constituents shouldn't sell their houses to the Chinese because they don't vote."
"There was definitely a lot of explicit as well as casual racism that I observed and heard during my time in that office," said another former employee. "A lot of vitriol directed to certain ethnic groups, religious groups."
Multiple sources said they heard Ratansi discourage staff from working on some South Asian communities' immigration files because she felt some came to Canada illegally and couldn't be trusted.
"Yasmin maintained a certain scepticism toward certain groups of people," said a former staff member. "Stereotypes, really, and [she] used those stereotypes to basically dictate action on certain immigration files."
It's not the first time Ratansi has come under fire for her remarks. She was accused of "victim blaming" in 2017 in response to comments she made about sexual violence during a panel discussion, VICE reported.
A member of the audience told VICE that Ratansi said "'sexual violence happens because women sexualize themselves' and that when it comes to dealing with sexual harassment, women should have thicker skin and treat the encounters 'like a water off a duck's back.'"
Ratansi originally denied making the comments, then apologized.
'It was an abusive and toxic environment'
The former employees CBC News spoke to also claim Ratansi created a "toxic environment" at the office. Two former employees said they felt Ratansi was frustrated by her lack of career advancement and took it out on staff.
"It was always scary, because you never know what will happen when she comes into the office," said a former staffer. "Whether she's in a good mood or bad mood ... It was an abusive and toxic environment."
The sources claim Ratansi publicly yelled at staff about their work and called people "stupid" for simple mistakes, such as leaving paperwork in the printer or taking photos she didn't like.
In some cases, the comments were aimed at employees' appearances, said the sources. One former staffer said Ratansi called some staff members "fat." Another said Ratansi told some staff members on more than one occasion that she was selecting other staffers to attend public events because they looked "like shit."
CBC News spoke to a fifth former employee who said that while Ratansi is opinionated, they never felt they were being mistreated or heard any troubling comments.
Two other former employees of Ratansi's office defended her and said the claims made against her contradicted their experiences of working with her. Both said they did not hear the MP make inappropriate comments and did not witness staff being treated badly.
'This is not good leadership,' said ethics expert
Chris MacDonald is a professor at the Ted Rogers School of Management who teaches business ethics. He said the claims, if true, raise serious questions about Ratansi's leadership style.
"This is not good leadership, this is not good management and it shouldn't be tolerated," he said.
"I think the overall pattern here, if substantiated, is one that should worry Canadians. This is not what we expect from our elected officials and it's not the kind of example they should be setting."
The question is, does her attitude come from being a Liberal or being a Muslim?
Prosecutors investigate Peru ex-president Merino after
two protesters die and several disappear
16 Nov, 2020 21:04
File photo: Peru's then-interim President Manuel Merino announces his resignation in a televised address.
© Reuters/Peruvian Presidency
Public prosecutors in Peru have launched a preliminary investigation into former president Manuel Merino, the prime minister and interior minister, over deaths and disappearances during recent anti-government protests.
Interim leader Merino was sworn in as president last week after his predecessor Martin Vizcarra, a popular figure among Peruvians, was controversially ousted by parliament.
But Peru’s political crisis deepened on Sunday as Merino himself was forced to resign less than a week into his job, after two protesters died at demonstrations. A further nine people have been reported missing during the protests and over 100 were injured.
The inquiry regarding Merino and his officials is into the violence and alleged forced disappearances at protests, which would constitute human rights breaches, Peru’s Attorney General Zoraida Avalos said on Monday.
“My office has decided to initiate a preliminary investigation against Manuel Merino de Lama, [PM] Antero Flores-Araoz, and [Interior Minister] Gaston Rodriguez for the alleged crimes of abuse of authority, as well as intentional homicide” against two men who died at the protests, Avalos said.
I can assure you that these deaths will not remain unpunished.
Amazing! Took less than a week for these guys to get themselves in serious trouble. Is Peru actually on the road to cleaning up their rampant corruption?
On Sunday thousands of people across the country mourned the two men, aged 22 and 24, who died on Saturday after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds during clashes between police and protesters in Lima.
A UN mission is also heading to the South American country to investigate potential human-rights abuses committed during the marches, in which police used rubber bullets and tear gas.
Peru’s congress elected legislator Francisco Sagasti on Monday as interim president.
Estonian politicians divided over online voting as minister resigns after claiming US election was manipulated by 'deep state'
18 Nov, 2020 09:00
FILE PHOTOS © Wikipedia; (inset) © REUTERS / Kevin Lamarque; © Getty Images / Chip Somodevilla
A row over the integrity of Estonia's electronic voting system has worsened after the resignation of the country's interior minister, who claimed last year's poll – as well as the US election – was influenced by the "deep state."
Information Technology Minister Raul Siem sought to reassure Estonians on Tuesday that their own elections, which took place last year, had not been compromised. "We have discussed the health of our electronic elections after government officials questioned it," he said, adding that those who had raised concerns over potential manipulation "were unequivocally rejected."
Minister for the Interior Mart Helme claimed earlier this month that election results in the tiny Eastern European nation were being falsified in favor of one particular party by those with access to the electronic voting system, local media reported.
Helme, from the Conservative People's Party (EKRE), a member of the governing coalition, went on to criticize the Democratic candidate in the US elections, Joe Biden, and attributed his projected victory to shadowy forces within the government. "The logic of the deep state is to embed scoundrels, corrupt, blackmailed bastards everywhere to ensure its own freedom of action. Joe Biden and Hunter Biden are corrupt types," he claimed.
Helme's son, Martin, who is the leader of the right-wing EKRE, and the country's Finance Minister, spoke out in support of his father's views. “In my opinion,” the younger Helme said, “there is no question at all that these elections were rigged… all normal people should oppose this. It makes no sense to talk about democracy or a state governed by the rule of law, if elections can be so simply, so blatantly and massively falsified.”
His father, Mart, eventually resigned from the government in a fiery letter, in which he promised the government that “you will not shut me up, no one will shut me up.”
On Tuesday, the country's president sought to distance himself from his former minister's comments, saying that when it came to the US elections, "not a single Estonian politician has cause to speak out on this, and we won't."
The Baltic state, with a population of only 1.3 million, is a world leader in digital government and online voting. Since 2005, citizens have been able to cast their ballots over the internet, no matter where in the world they are. According to the government, 30 percent of the public use the system and its improved efficiency saves 11,000 working days per election.
Why would Deep State be so interested in such a small country? Its proximity to Russia and its influence on Latvia and Lithuania. All three countries could be easily overrun by Russia, if it had the desire to. All three make good customers for western-built weapons systems. That's why Deep State continues to demonize Russia, to keep her neighbours living in enough fear to keep buying weapons.
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