Suspended NDIS provider Cocoon SDA Care splashes $30k for lunch with Brisbane Lord Mayor
Suspended NDIS provider Cocoon SDA Care forked out tens of thousands of dollars to win a lunch with a prominent Brisbane politician.
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EXCLUSIVE: A company under investigation for allegedly claiming NDIS payments for dead people and prisoners paid $30,000 to have a face-to-face lunch with a prominent politician.
Cocoon SDA Care, which is temporarily suspended from providing some NDIS services while it undergoes a manual audit, splashed out $30,000 at a fundraiser in 2023 to win a lunch with the Lord Mayor of Brisbane Adrian Schrinner.
It’s parent company, Horizon SolSolutions, claims $50m a year in NDIS payments from the taxpayer.
A total of 10 people, including executives from Cocoon SDA Care, enjoyed lunch at Takashiya at Brisbane’s South Bank.
The Mayor was pictured afterwards holding a Cocoon SDA Care brochure and talking to ex-bankrupt and former taxi driver Zaffar Khan, who is corporate strategist for the Cocoon group of companies.
Also in the picture is Mr Khan’s executive assistant and former Bachelor contestant Marg Irving, formerly Zogoulas.
One former Cocoon employee, who did not want to be named, said about the fundraiser that “Zaffar had his EA Marg do the bidding and was clearly having fun splashing that kind of money around, outbidding the others by a large margin”.
He said the lunch “was an opportunity for Zaffar to wax lyrical about Cocoon and tell Mayor Schrinner how amazing they were”.
There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Ms Irving or Mayor Schrinner.
Mr Khan initially said that the $30,000 went to the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Trust, which supports vulnerable individuals across Brisbane.
A $30,000 political donation was also made by Cocoon SDA Care to the Liberal National Party in the 2022-2023 financial year, according to the disclosure register.
When asked to clarify whether the $30,000 went to the trust or was a political donation, Mr Khan said, “I did go to the event, and it was my understanding that the donation was to the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Trust. I apologise if I was mistaken.”
He said the donation was not from NDIS money or taxpayer funding, but “investment I generated from overseas. This was the only donation of $30,000 paid.”
Brisbane City Council has no record of Cocoon SDA Care or Zaffar Khan making a donation to the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Trust.
Mayor Schrinner said he was “concerned about all these reports regarding NDIS providers and how they spend their money”.
“I think it’s time for a better system to make sure funds raised through the NDIS go to those most in need,” he said.
The Liberal National Party said the 2023 fundraising event was held long before any allegations were raised against Cocoon SDA Care.
Earlier this month this masthead revealed that former Liberal politician Gary Hargrave had worked part-time as an “advisor” for Cocoon SDA Care.
He also attended a business trip to Jakarta with Mr Khan and other members of the team, where they stayed in a five-star hotel.
On Tuesday, Horizon SolSolutions, failed in its bid to force the government to pay up to $6.4 million of taxpayer money it claims it is owed.
The company, whose sole director is Muhammad Latif, took the National Disability Insurance Agency to the Federal Court saying the grounds for withholding NDIS payments for services already provided were “unreasonable”.
In court papers, Mr Latif had said in a letter that “there had been administrative failures and honest mistakes in relation to a small subset of claims”.
He said fraud was a very serious allegation to make, and was not supported by the evidence.
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Originally published as Suspended NDIS provider Cocoon SDA Care splashes $30k for lunch with Brisbane Lord Mayor
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