This is a cross-post by avicenna from The Spittoon
In its latest press release, the Muslim Council of Britain makes this claim:
Presenting his financial statement, the Treasurer of MCB, Harun Rashid Khan, strongly rebutted the repeatedly wilful misreporting that the MCB was in receipt of PREVENT funding. He also stressed that the MCB does not take any funding from the government for its core work. He thanked the member affiliates and the community for sustaining the MCB to date with their tremendous contributions and support.
But Andrew Stunell, Minister at the DCLG, says otherwise:
Andrew Stunell, Minister at the DCLG said it had provided £2,500 to the Muslim Council of Britain for a guest table at the council leadership dinner held on 22 February 2010. DCLG has not provided any further funding to the Muslim Council of Britain for the organisation to undertake work or projects.
Mr Stunnell said: “For an interim period, funding for the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB) was routed through the council as one of MINAB’s founding members as MINAB had not then acquired independent charitable status, and as a result did not have its own bank account. Funding for MINAB was made directly to them as soon as they became an independent organisation. The funding was to support them to improve standards in mosques (£116,000 in 2008–09 and £58,000 in 2009–10).
“Muslim Council of Britain has a large and wide ranging national membership of organisations that are affiliated to it. Of these, DCLG has funded the following organisations through the Community Leadership Fund:
“Muslim Youth Helpline: £30,650 (2008–09), £61,888 (2009–10), £64,767 (2010–11) to build their capacity to extend the reach of their support services to vulnerable young people,
“Karimia Institute: £67,180 (2008–09), £50,000 (2009–10), £50,000 (2010–11) for youth leadership training.
“Islamic Society of Britain: £20,000 (2008–09) for developing the Islamic Awareness Week website to promote positive understanding of Islam to other communities.
“Young Muslims UK: £20,000 (2008–09), £5,000 (2009–10) to promote talent among young Muslims
“Muslim Aid: £5,000 (2009–10) for part-sponsorship of Muslim Aid’s 25th Anniversary.”
In light of this statement, the MCB has some answering to do in regards to their own “wilful misreporting”.
