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Advertising and marketing agency given £40m PPE contract made employees work on furlough

Khokhar Instagram post

Emails and messages also show how employees were expected to continue as usual.

In an email to all employees on March 27, 2020, days after Boris Johnson announced a ban, it said: “Everyone in the company has agreed to be on leave.”

But in April one of the company’s directors sent a WhatsApp message saying that anyone with “IT problems” should “come in” [to the office] so that I can sort them ”.

That same month, in a group chat, one employee posted that he had just “finished a call with a customer” while another mentioned that some people were “in” [the] same office “.

In May a boss wrote: “For your information, folks – Monday is a business day in the UK! I had previously thought it was a public holiday, but had forgotten that it was changed this year. “

openDemocracy has also seen news showing that certain people were working at the same time that their pay slips said “FurloughPay (80%)”.

By June 2020, employees were told they could return to the London office. But one email said: “Can those who want to continue working from home with a reduced salary of 80%, please contact me directly.”

In an email to the employees on June 26, 2020, it says: “KMG [KAU Media Group] made some money by investing in other areas. We have therefore decided that an earlier leave request is no longer required and have returned it to the government. Essentially, this means that 100% of all wages were funded by KMG. “

In response to questions from openDemocracy and The Times, Khokhar denied that employees on leave were forced to work, claiming that “most” did not. However, he admitted that they were asked to “be reactive when a customer calls”.

“We felt it was fair and reasonable to take calls or calls from a customer,” he said, adding that the directors believe they acted in good faith. “These were unprecedented times for which there was neither a script nor past experience.”

However, Khokhar admitted that the employees were never paid back for lost money after they were given leave of absence to 80% of their normal salary.

Official data shows the company applied for further assistance for the vacation program and received at least £ 175,000 between December 2020 and June 2021. Previous month information was not published by the HMRC.

EPP millionaires

Khokhar’s photo of a Lamborghini sports car last year | Instagram

KAU Media Group, led by Mohammed Kashif Khokhar and Mohammed Abid Masood (known as Kash and Abz), had no experience with PSA when the government gave it a major contract in April last year.

Company documents show how 40-year-old Khokhar poured millions of pounds out of KAU Media Group when it won the first deal.

About two weeks after the deal was confirmed, he and his wife started a mailbox company called MKEDO Limited. That company then charged KAU Media Group £ 10.1 million in “brokerage fees” before quickly being liquidated – so the money could be passed straight to the couple.

After KAU Media Group received £ 20million contracts in April 2020, it won another £ 20.3million PPE contract in June of that year for the supply of face masks and aprons.

None of the former employees who spoke to openDemocracy had any idea how the company managed to win such lucrative contracts away from the usual business.

Khokhar said today politicians have “absolutely no involvement” in helping them reach an agreement. “We are the market leader in healthcare advertising and have a deep understanding of the market as well as the contacts for the supply of PPE.”