The £15,000 grant made by Croydon’s ruling Conservative group last week went to an organisation which is headed by one of the local Tories’ biggest regular donors, a man who is also a councillor.

Earlier this week, we highlighted the news that a local Bangladeshi welfare group had been awarded a grant out of Croydon council funds.

The Bangladeshi Welfare Association was the only group to be given a financial reprieve when every other local voluntary and charity group that attended last Monday’s Scrutiny Committee had their pleas for more money ignored.

Now here’s an interesting collection of facts, some of them related…

• The Bangladeshi Welfare Association’s president is Badsha Quadir.
• The same Badsha Quadir also happens to be a Conservative Councillor for Purley.
• The same Badsha Quadir – or Mohammed Badsha Quadir, to give him his full name – over the past four years appears to have donated nearly £12,000 to … Croydon Conservatives.
• According to the Electoral Commission’s records, a Mohammed B Qadir (not quite the usual spelling, but close enough to make it likely to be the same man) first paid in £6,397.50 in cash to Croydon’s Conservative Association on June 14 2006.
• On October 31 2007, “Mohammed B Quadir” (the same spelling as used by the returning officer in the most recent council elections) donated a further £1,590.00 cash to the local Tories.
• There was another donation of £275.00 cash from “Mohammed B Quadir” on September 15 2008.
• On October 13 that year, local Conservatives received £1,100.00 in “sponsorship” from Mohammed B Quadir.
• On October 11 last year, Mohammed B Quadir paid over another sponsorship sum, £555.00, to the Croydon Conservatives.
• And on November 25 last year, the same man donated £1,500.00 cash to his local Conservative party’s coffers.

All of the donations made by Quadir to the local Conservatives are, as far as we can check, entirely legal. He might have made donations to other local causes, too, like the Bangladeshi Welfare Association.

And looking at the official records, it would seem that Quadir is soon due to make his annual donation to his local Tory party.

Given that his colleagues on the Conservative-run council have just “donated” £15,000 of council tax-payers’ money to the worthy cause of Bangladeshi Welfare Association, it will be interesting to see just how Quadir shows his gratitude.