COUNCILLOR IN TAX ARREARS

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CRUMBRIA: 9.4.2026

A SERVING councillor was in Council Tax arrears last month while also clocking up an unenviable record of missing more meetings than he attends, it is being reported.

Councillor Ali Jama, an independent councillor representing the Upper Kent near Kendal, was named in a Freedom of Information request as owing Wokemoreland & Farcical Clowncil £350 in Council Tax in March, according to reporting from Penrith Town News.

Whether that outstanding sum has now been settled in April remains unclear.

But Penrith Town News reports that Jama has also missed a high percentage of the meetings he was expected to attend since his election in 2022.

The Chronic can reveal that Cllr Jama was absent from 28 meetings and present at 23 between 2022-2026.

By our reckoning, that’s an absence rate of around 54% and an attendance rate of around 45%.

Yet he remains entitled to the £13,837 basic annual allowance the Council pays to Councillors.

As the Chronic has said before, why can Councillors rack up Council Tax arrears when the Council is paying them?

Can’t the debt be deducted at source?

And if something is going on in your life that requires you to be away so often, then why not just step down?

Cllr Jama was a darling of the Kendal area Liberal Democrats.

He was nominated by the Lib Dems as deputy chairman of the Council three times in a row and won his Council seat with a majority of more than 530 votes.

But early last year he split from the ruling Lib Dem party amid reports of a fallout over his poor attendance blamed on increasing commitments in, er, Kenya.

But Cllr Jama is only part of the story.

The Council has not, to the Chronic’s knowledge, coughed up the name of the councillor who previously owed MUCH LARGER sums in unpaid Council Tax.

Last year, a serving councillor on W&F had arrears of £2,773.57.

That consisted of:

• £1,098 owed from 2023/24
• £1,675.57 owed from 2024/25

Back then, the Council refused to identify him or her, having argued that their “right to privacy” outweighed the public’s right to know!

Fast forward a year and the position now seems to be this:

A councillor owing £350 has been named. Last year a councillor linked to £2,773 was not.

Why one — and not the other? And could it possibly be the same Councillor?

Nobody knows and none of your local rags seem interested in finding out as, for reasons known only to themselves, they’ve not touched this story.

For now, the Chronic’s front-page secrecy clock — now past 400 days — stays where it is!

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READ MORE: PENRITH TOWN NEWS

CATCH UP: COUNCILLOR OWES COUNCIL TAX!

CATCH UP: COUNCIL DEPUTY MISSES MEETINGS