More litigations ahead. Government takeover not legally airtight

At his press conference Wednesday, the PM described the agreement to extend the contract for the management of the IBC and Ships Registries as having been signed off in secret and that nobody knew about it. When News Five produced a letter proving that the Financial Secretary as well as Gian Gandhi to whom the letter was copied knew of the extension to the agreement, the PM was forced to backpedal and describe it as a memory lapse on the part of the Financial Secretary.  Today, Channel Five examined the Government’s legal case a little closer and found that it is hardly as airtight as the PM confidently made it sound Wednesday.  The Financial Secretary in his letter to Belize International Services Ltd informed them that the agreement extending the management of the registries was contrary to the Finance and Audit Act. The PM at his press conference also pressed this point.  But Channel Five’s investigations reveal that the agreement was extended on March twenty-fourth, 2005. The Finance and Audit Act was not amended until April first 2005, after the agreement was extended.  The PM also suggested that the agreement was unlawful because it didn’t go to Cabinet and the national assembly. But yesterday both former PM Musa and Opposition Leader Fonseca said that it did.  Even if it did not go to the Cabinet or the National Assembly, attorneys contacted by Channel Five say that a Master Agreement signed in 1993 providing for ten year extensions wouldn’t have to be taken to Cabinet each time an extension came up and certainly there would be no need to take it to the National Assembly. With dark litigation clouds gathering on the horizon, G.O.B. should brace for stormy seas ahead.