Tonight there are no new major developments to report in the ongoing private registry scandal. What we do know is that the revised deed of settlement has not been signed, and so it's still not final. As we noted, that revised deed differs greatly from the first in which the government side conceded that the contracts for BELIPO in 2001 and the Private Registry in 2003 were, "executed without proper authority" and were "repugnant to the constitution" and are "therefore invalid and unenforceable." That position was signed unto by Senior Advisor in the Ministry of Finance Joe Waight, but the part owner of BELIPO David Jenkins refused to sign. In the revised deed, all those declarations are omitted and it only refers to "irreconcilable differences."
As we reported last night, Cabinet did approve the privatization of the Companies Registry in 2001, but what we do know is that Cabinet did not see or approve the contracts for those private companies. This, we should note, is not a deviation from standard practice as Cabinet does not, as a matter of routine, review contracts.
