Why not give Essma a
Harrods account as well as a £2m mansion?
Essma
Marjam, 34 with one of her six children, outside the house which costs
taxpayers almost £7,000 a month
Here
we go again. A single mother of six is living in a £2 million London house
courtesy of the mug British taxpayer. Essma Marjam, 34, moved into the
four-storey villa earlier this month. Her £7,000-a-month rent is being paid by
Westminster Council. The house is close to Lord's cricket ground in an area
popular with wealthy businessmen, bankers and celebrities, including Paul
McCartney. It belongs to a property company, based in Kenya, and boasts five
bedrooms, two bathrooms, a double living room with leather sofas, two
flat-screen TVs, a fitted kitchen and landscaped gardens.
Miss
Marjam was already living in a threebedroom council flat when she gave birth to
her sixth child five months ago. Under rules laid down by central government,
she is entitled to a bigger home. Since the council did not have anything
suitable on its books, she went to a private letting agency. Westminster says
it had no alternative but to accept her claim for increased housing benefit.
With other handouts, Miss Marjam and her family cost taxpayers £100,000 a year.
She explained: 'I'm separated from my husband. He's a solicitor in Derby, but I
don't know if he's working at the moment. He doesn't pay anything towards the
kids. Things are quite difficult between us at the moment.'
They
couldn't have been all that difficult 14 months ago when Miss Marjam conceived
her latest baby. That's assuming her estranged husband is the father. Not easy
to tell, actually, since four of her children - aged from 14 downwards - answer
to the name of Benjamin while the other two are registered under the name Khan.
As usual, this case throws up as many questions as answers. If Miss Marjam was
already living in cramped conditions, why did she think it was a good idea to
have another baby?
Are
the Child Support Agency making any attempts to chase Mr Benjamin and Mr Khan
for maintenance? Miss Marjam is happy with her new home, although not entirely
satisfied. 'The house is lovely and very big, but I don't have enough furniture
to fill it.'
That
probably explains why vans from Argos and other big retailers were delivering
to her address all last week. Who's paying for that? Silly question. Why not cut
out the middle man and give her a Harrods account, chargeable to the
DSS?Admittedly, the council is only following orders from central government.
But how hard did they try to find her somewhere for less than £7,000-a-month?
In so many of these cases, officials simply shrug and take the line of least
resistance.
Westminster
alone is forking out the thick end of £28 million a year to 800 families in
similar circumstances. The Mail regularly highlights the most outrageous abuses
of an insanely over-indulgent system, including the Afghan family of seven,
living in a £1.2 million house in Acton and costing taxpayers £170,000 a year
in benefits. Most recently there was the Somali family of eight given not one,
but two, homes in Westminster, one worth £1.8 million, both equipped with
statutory plasma televisions and computers.
Councillors
complain that anyone who turns up at Victoria coach station and declares
themselves homeless, no matter where in the world they have come from,
automatically goes to the top of the housing list. It allows ministers to salve
their consciences and congratulate themselves on their compassion, while
shovelling the bill and the social consequences onto local taxpayers, powerless
by law to resist.
In
the case of Miss Marjam, from what we have been able to gather she does at
least appear to be a British citizen who grew up in this country.
She
certainly has the same indigenous sense of entitlement as any other feckless
single mother.
What
makes this Vicky Pollard in a headscarf stand out is not her hijab but the
enormous size of the bill she presents every month. It is always going to cost
more to house a family of seven in Central London than on some gruesome
northern council estate, but that's not the point. Why should an unemployed
single mother of six be automatically entitled to a five-bedroom, £2 million
home in an exclusive sought-after area? Or a five-bedroom house anywhere, come
to that? Taken to its logical conclusion, any woman who simply carries on
having babies could breed herself into a place the size of Buckingham Palace. Why
should hard-pressed British taxpayers continue to subsidise a culture of
fecklessness and line the pockets of professional landlords milking the system
for all it's worth?
This
story - and hundreds of others like it - is an insult to all those decent
parents who live in much more cramped surroundings and wouldn't dream of asking
the state for a penny. It is no wonder their blood boils when they read about
the Essma Marjams of this world. Every time one of these cases comes to light,
there is a brief outcry and ministers promise to change the rules.
We
are assured that it will never happen again, but it always does.
And
until someone in government summons up the courage to dismantle Britain's
grotesque welfare culture, it always will.
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