They Can’t Get Rid of the Money Fast Enough
We learn from a belated trawl through the budget papers, that as her final act, Mayor Fiaz seems intent of shovelling out cash as fast as she can.
It seems that there is £1 million in community grants that must be shovelled out of the building before she leaves office. Quite coincidentally, this will be just in time for the election.
We came across another capital grant that seems to have avoided any scrutiny, indeed it seems that many if not most Labour councillors hadn’t even heard about it.
Hidden in the budget papers tabled for the February 2026 Council Meeting on the Budget we discovered that £750,000 has been allocated for “burial provision”.
We found, hidden in the smallest of small print among 301 pages, was the following.
Newham it appears is ‘investing to save’ and it is doing this by creating new burial provision, apparently, a new cemetery. Quite how this will ‘save’ money is not clear.
It appears that the new burial provision will be funded by a new loan! It’s a good job that Newham is now flush with money.
The papers are silent on where the money is going, but we learn that the Newham Muslim Burial Association is to be the recipient of the grant. NMBA ins based on High St North, E12 and appears to be run by a single individual, one Kamran Yousaf, according to Companies House.
It was incorporated on 5th November 2024 and seemed to have been inactive until recently. This seems a strange way for a company to act, to get set up and then do nothing for 18 months. It has not yet filed any accounts with Companies House and it was about to be struck off the register.
The reason is perhaps that Mr Yousaf was preoccupied with his other business venture at A&K Properties NW Ltd, based in Salford, Lancashire.
But then something clearly happened around February 2026 that caused the striking-off process to be stopped. Companies House are silent on the ‘cause’ that showed the NMBA should not be struck off, but we do know that it occurred between the 10th and 26th February 2026.
Coincidentally, the council had a meeting which agreed the burial money on Monday 23rd February.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the reference for grants to Buddhists, Sikhs and Hindu burials, but we are sure that the cash-strapped council has been fair to all of the local communities and that there must be similar allocations for them.
We did try to gather some information from members of the ruling Labour Group about this but it seems that the matter was never discussed by Group members, which given the likely controversial nature of the grant, is a little surprising.
To submit that it was deliberately being done on the quiet, as some have suggested seems a little unfair. But the even more damning suggestion that it was to help a certain cabinet member who was feeling vulnerable in his ward is even worse.
We have discovered that one of the mayoral candidates, at least, will be seeking legal advice in the event that he is elected about the process by which this was agreed.
Stop Press: We have recently discovered that the programme that the money will finance is called From Life to Rest. This is from their website.
This may be an entirely proper way for the council to spend your money. But why would a burial association want to hold hustings for the forthcoming mayoral election? The hustings will clearly be focussed on the demands of a single community.
The fact that this company, run by a man from Salford is clearly engaging with Newham politics must lead to the suggestion at least that there are questions to be answered. £750,000 for the ‘needs’ of a single community? Who was behind this and where are the papers that justified it? Why were members of the ruling Labour Group never told about it? Does Mr Yousaf have any connection with any Newham councillors?
For those who would like to attend the hustings, the details are as follows:
