Brampton Councillor Rowena Santos paid $60K to communications firm run by former political ally, with no sign of competitive bidding

Brampton taxpayers have paid nearly $66,000 since 2022 to a small communications company whose only listed director previously ran a self-described “media partner” for two of the same councillors, Rowena Santos and Paul Vicente, who have now again used taxpayer funds to hire a man named Fazal Khan. The arrangement mirrors a 2019 sole-source contract to the same person’s organization, which drew a still-unresolved integrity commissioner complaint against the entire city council.

In 2019, council members during the previous term expressed concern when they found out the vast majority of taxpayer funding for an organization that presented itself as a local media platform, went to the same man, Fazal Khan, for work on a neighbourhood safety program that did not appear aligned with what the group did. Some members of council expressed their anger when it was learned the vast majority of the money for the program was actually handed to Khan himself, as salary.

His name has now again emerged in connection to Santos and Vicente, and work they handed to Khan more recently, once again paid for by Brampton taxpayers. 

Fazal Khan was the focus of controversy in 2019 when it was learned that Councillors Rowena Santos and Paul Vicente, who had worked closely with the man, helped him get $94,000 of taxpayer money from a program that was for community safety.

(YouTube screenshot)

Since the start of the current term of council, expense statements published by the City of Brampton show Councillors Santos and Vicente used taxpayer funds to pay Piphany Capital Corp, controlled by Khan, a combined $65,680.64 across at least 35 invoices for work described variously as “communication services”, “content development”, “web hosting” and “media production.” The vast majority of the money, $60,812.43, was spent by Santos across 33 invoices. Vicente’s office paid $4,868.21 billed in two invoices. 

The billing is dominated by small, recurring monthly charges, many in the $150 to $2,000 range, for ongoing web hosting and content work, punctuated by larger one-off charges for website builds and “media production and subscription” services. 

The $60,000 amount paid by taxpayers for work Santos was invoiced for exceeds the threshold that would require a formal multi-quote process. No request for proposals or process to obtain competing quotes for the work was found in the records that were reviewed. 

Council members and staff are warned against contract splitting, the practice of breaking down regular work or larger contacts into smaller amounts that are invoiced separately to avoid rules that require multiple quotes for any work over $25,000, to ensure friends, family or associates are not favoured when taxpayer money is used. 

Councillor Rowena Santos's office paid Piphany Capital Corp $60,812.43 since 2022; she has not said who owns the company.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer)

Piphany Capital Corp has no discoverable public-facing website, portfolio or business listing. Its sole listed director is Fazal Khan, previously the executive director of Brampton Focus and program manager of Neighbourhood Watch Brampton, both organizations with direct financial and governance ties to Santos and Vicente dating back to 2019. 

Along with his ties to Santos and Vicente, Khan has also previously been a supporter of Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown and was involved in the public dissemination of content favourable to Brown during previous election cycles.

The Pointer sent written questions to Santos, Vicente and Mayor Brown (all three have been supported by Khan in the past) asking them to detail their relationship to Khan and whether they consider any payment to him funded by Brampton taxpayers a conflict of interest given his past support. They were also asked if any competitive process was used to award the work to Khan. 

Santos previously declined to say who owns or operates Piphany Capital Corp when asked in an earlier round of questions. Her office provided a response, stating Khan had helped build Santos’s website: www.councillorsantos.ca. She was then asked why a less expensive option such as Squarespace was not used; she did not respond and did not address the conflict of interest concern. Brown and Vicente did not respond to questions. A separate attempt was made to Khan directly via LinkedIn, as no working contact information for him or the company could be found. He did not respond.

Councillor Paul Vicente's office paid Piphany Capital Corp $4,868.21 for communications work, records show.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer)

This is not the first time Brampton’s council has faced scrutiny over money flowing to organizations run by Fazal Khan. In July 2019, council voted to award a $150,000 sole-source, six month contract to Brampton Focus, described at the time as a volunteer-run local media outlet, to fund Neighbourhood Watch Brampton, a community safety program the outlet operated. 

Santos had been a board member of both Brampton Focus and Neighbourhood Watch, and Vicente was a founding director of Brampton Focus. Records obtained by a Brampton council candidate at the time indicated Vicente was still formally listed as a director on the date of the vote, despite having publicly claimed he resigned in December 2017. Neither councillor declared a conflict of interest before voting in favour of handing over the $150,000. 

That funding award prompted a formal complaint to the city’s Integrity Commissioner, alleging council members breached the municipal Code of Conduct by approving a sole-source contract benefiting an organization with close ties to sitting council members, without any competitive process. The complaint specifically flagged the lack of a request for proposals given the size of the contract, and noted council members had received individualized self-promotional video packages from Khan’s group around the same time. 

Brampton Focus’s leadership at the time, including Khan, who held the title of executive director, publicly defended the arrangement, arguing community groups should not be held to the same procurement standards as commercial vendors.

The Neighbourhood Watch pilot ran for about a year, before council pulled its funding in September 2020. A city staff breakdown of the $152,024 the group spent found $94,110 went to staffing, with $93,750 of that paid for the program manager role, filled by Khan. When councillors found out the vast majority of taxpayer money went to a man with direct ties to Santos and Vicente, who voted to give his group the funding, some expressed their frustration, at the time. Council terminated the funding for the program. 

Expense records for the current council term reviewed by The Pointer show Santos and Vicente kept flowing taxpayer money to Khan, who has received more than $65,000 thanks to them.

Santos was the subject of widespread anger in 2022, when it was learned she had worked behind the scenes to help a close friend get approximately $100,000 from Brampton taxpayers, for work to bring a new standalone university to the city.

Councillors had called a sweeping set of external investigations into contracts and hiring under Brown.

A preliminary investigation report showed Santos was in a clear conflict of interest when she assisted David Wheeler in securing the work. Santos had previously helped Wheeler campaign for public office and called him a “mentor”. The external forensic investigation firm hired for the probe reported that Santos helped him secure the contract, without the knowledge of council and when her fellow councillors approved the agreement they were never told of the close relationship between Santos and Wheeler. Evidence showed that Wheeler began billing taxpayers even before his contract had been approved, and that Santos had helped Wheeler prepare his presentation to staff and council that helped him land the contract. Her council colleagues had no idea she had helped the man behind the scenes. 

The pattern of taxpayer-funded contracts going to individuals or firms with prior political ties to the councillors awarding them, without a competitive process, seems to have continued.

Santos eventually voted with Brown to cancel the investigations that a rival group of councillors had ordered in 2022, in what was described as a conflict of interest to cover up the original conflict of interest. Only the preliminary investigation report ever surfaced, before Santos and Brown swept it under the rug, and neither faced any punishment for what they had allegedly done. The promised university project was quietly abandoned by Santos and Brown. 

The episode became a flashpoint in a broader falling-out between Brown and the majority bloc of councillors, several of whom accused him publicly of a pattern of directing contracts and public resources toward friends and associates.

This story is part of The Pointer’s ongoing review of Brampton Councillors’ 2022-2026 expense statements. 

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