Bury’s racial equality council wound up
THE board of the Bury Metro Racial Equality Council has been forced to close down the organisation after running out of money.
Insolvency experts from the Bury accountancy firm Horsfields have been called in and will hold a creditors’ meeting at their offices on April 17.
Until last July the chief executive of the REC was Monaza Luqman, a former director of Lexi Holdings, the Manchester-based property finance business that collapsed in 2006 owing its banks more than £100m.
Earlier this year the High Court in London found that Monaza, listed as Monuza in court documents, was personally liable for £36.9m of the missing money. Her sister Zaurian was responsible for £41.5m. Monaza filed for bankruptcy in August.
Bury REC’s treasurer Sam Cohen, a Conservative councillor in the town, said there was no link between the demise of the REC and Monaza Luqman’s business dealings.
He said the REC “simply ran out of money” after payments from its chief funders – Bury Council and the Commission for Racial Equality – were cut.
In its last available accounts for the year to March 2008 the REC had an income of £170,000 and spent £142,779. It had cash in the bank of nearly £60,000 after taking into account a surplus from the previous year.
But in 2008-09 the REC, which helps Bury residents fight race-related injustice, lost its £20,000 Bury Council grant after a change in the distribution of grants.
And an annual payment of £37,500 from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, formerly the Commission for Racial Equality, was suspended after a dispute between Ms Luqman’s replacement and the rest of the board. Mr Cohen said that dispute was resolved but the commission refused to reinstatment its payments.
In a statement the commission said: “In February 2009 the commission asked Bury Metro Racial Equality Council to provide written assurances of the satisfactory resolution of a dispute between their director and board.
“They have so far been unable to provide us with that assurance, and pending receipt of this, the Commission has suspended – not withdrawn – their funding.”
Despite having ‘Bury Metro’ in its name, the REC was not associated with Bury Council, apart from the voluntary involvement of elected councillors. It had been advising the town’s residents for more than 30 years.
