Robinson is back in business

CONTROVERSIAL Labour MP Geoffrey Robinson has returned to the business scene, taking a position on the board of Midlands engineering company Smart Technology Group.

Robinson, the former Paymaster General whose business dealings have caused the Government much embarrassment in the past, has also been appointed a non-executive director of Torgam Developments, a London-based waste management group.

The appointments are sure to cause to high anxiety in Government circles, where Robinson's involvement with disgraced tycoon the late Robert Maxwell and his role in failed engineer TransTec are still fresh in the mind.

Smart Technology is based in Coleshill, Birmingham. Robinson's recently-amended Register of Members' Interests describes it as a 'company specialising in high technology involving materials and control processes and in traditional machine tool activities'. Torgam specialises in 'clinical waste management operations and consultancy services'.

Smart Technology is controlled by Dr Mohamed Sami Ahmed and Hana Ahmed. It had net assets of £816,711 at 31 March, 2001 with 500,000 shares of £1 each in issue. Both Robinson and Dr Ahmed refused to discuss their plans for Smart Technology, which some in the engineering industry believe they may be lining up for a stock market flotation.

The company's remarkable resemblance to the collapsed TransTec, which was also a Midlands-based engineering company, will send a shiver through investors who lost millions of pounds when the car components maker was rendered worthless following the discovery of a £13m black hole in its accounts. The problems stemmed from hidden penalties imposed by Ford for late delivery of cylinder heads. TransTec employees are still disputing their pensions.

In May last year Robinson was found guilty of misleading Parliament over his failure to register a £200,000 payment from Maxwell. It was the fourth time the Committee on Standards and Privileges had found against Robinson. Robinson, who was managing-director of Jaguar Motor Cars between 1973 and 1975, quit as Paymaster General in December 1998 after it was revealed he had lent £373,000 to Peter Mandelson to help him buy a house in London's Notting Hill.