MP defends criticisms over oil firm's finances

STRATFORD MP Nadhim Zahawi this week defended himself following revelations that he has made £370,000 from an oil company that is £470 million in debt.

Press reports have stated that Mr Zahawi has been making a fortune from his work with Gulf Keystone Petroleum while small shareholders in the company “have seen their investment all but wiped out”.

Mr Zahawi, who has been Stratford’s MP since 2010, was taken on as chief strategy officer for Gulf Keystone in 2015 on a salary of £20,125 a month for working between eight and 21 hours a week. This works out at more than £240,000 a year.

Already a millionaire as a result of his role as co-founder of the polling company YouGov, Mr Zahawi also receives a salary of just under £75,000 a year as a Member of Parliament. His parliamentary salary, however, is dwarfed by his income from his outside business interests.

In addition to his Gulf Keystone salary of £20,125 a month, one report states that he received a string of bonuses between January and June this year, adding up to £76,246.38, plus a payment of £52,325 made in September for 210 hours work, backdated to July last year.

He is also reported to be earning £40,000 a year as a non-executive director of the recruitment company SThree.

Among his other business activities is a consultancy he operates with his wife, Lana, called Zahawi and Zahawi, which runs stables from his 31-acre constituency home in Upper Tysoe.

In 2013 it was revealed that he’d claimed expenses for electricity used by the riding business and a yard manager’s mobile home. Mr Zahawi said the expenses claim had been made by mistake and he paid it back in full.

Mr Zahawi is an Iraqi Kurd whose family were persecuted by Saddam Hussein and fled to England when he was a child. Gulf Keystone is a company with specific interests in Kurdistan.

According to reports the firm has 35,000 shareholders, most of them people of modest means. But since 2012 the company has lost 99 per cent of its market value, with its share price crashing from 425p to just over 2p today.

Mr Zahawi – who has always maintained that his work for Gulf Keystone is done in his own time, including Sundays – told the Herald: “The huge debts that the company has racked up, and therefore the loss of share value, was under a previous management team.

“The current management team was brought in with the purpose of restructure and to help save hundreds of jobs in the UK and Kurdistan. I was approached by the current CEO because of my oil and gas expertise, having trained as a chemical engineer, and my country expertise.”

Mr Zahawi added: “By the time you go to print on Thursday we will have completed a restructuring of the business that would convert over half a billion dollars of debt into equity, making the company viable and saving those jobs. The restructuring was approved by shareholders with 94 per cent voting in favour.”