What's the deal between GLA and the UK's Venezuela Information Centre?
By Aleksander Boyd
London 14.06.05 | On May 17th I reported about Mr Alan Freeman, a Greater London Authority (GLA) employee who launched the UK's Venezuela Information Centre [1]. My concern had to do with the obvious conflict of interest arising from the misuse of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) provided for by the Greater London Authority to its staff. For it is rather obvious that the duties and responsibilities of an economist of the GLA have got nothing to do with the dissemination of political propaganda in favour of the president of Venezuela. Thus I got in touch with the GLA to request an explanation of such behaviour and lousy explaining they did. Janet Worth, GLA's Executive Director of Corporate Services, letter is enclosed. It is worth mentioning that Mr Freeman lied through his teeth regarding the use of his official email address as can be easily demonstrated with the screenshot taken from WHOIS on May 17th [2]. Furthermore, Janet Worth's arguments are, quite frankly, an insult to one's intelligence and it shows the sort of integrity that one is to expect from civil servants. Section 2.3 (b) of the mentioned CODE OF ETHICS AND STANDARDS FOR STAFF [3] reads "To uphold the political impartiality of the Authority’s staff, not to use public resources for political purposes and not to act in any way which would conflict with this Code". One has to guess that GLA's staff political impartiality and prohibition to use resources for political purposes refers only to local politics for Freeman's enthusiasm and cheering in favour of a failed coupster is not cause of concern.
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