The Musa administration suffered another major loss in the Supreme Court today. The Chief Justice today ruled that government's exclusive 5 year, $10 million contract with Print Belize is illegal but, and there's a big one, he refused to throw out the contract. Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh was ruling on an application for judicial review made 31 months ago by the Printers' Association.
The coalition of printers were up in arms because, under the contract, government would exclusively use the privatized Print Belize at an annual cost of $2.5 million. The basis for the application was that under the Finance and Audit Act, the contract should have been put out to tender. More than that, the Printers' attorney Lois Young argued that the sale of the Government Printery should have also been put out to tender. Conteh agreed and found that, "I find that the award of the two contracts in question in this case did not meet the relevant applicable procedures."
And those applicable procedures are the financial orders and the stores orders. Government's attorney Elson Kaseke argued that the Minister of Finance had the right to waive those, but Conteh found that, "there is nothing in the texts of either the Finance and Audit Act or the FOSOS that can be said to give the Minister discretion to waive the tender procedures. The so-called long and well-established practice of waiving the tender procedures is a recipe for impropriety and corruption leading to dissatisfaction, even resentment."
So what's next? Well the Printers' Association wanted CJ to quash the contract which was signed back in 2003. Conteh wrote that "much water has flowed under the bridge since the execution of the two contracts, therefore an order quashing the contracts would be seriously disruptive of the administration as important government printing business would not be carried on."
So the good news for the Printers' Association is that Conteh directed that when the contract expires in 2008, although renewal should be virtually automatic, the proper tender procedures must be followed. Conteh also awarded the Association $25,000 costs of court.
The Angelus Press' Manager Amparo Noble told us this evening that today's decision was a victory but it doesn't end here. Noble told us that with the assistance of their attorney, the Association will now explore ways to make sure someone is held accountable for the wrongdoing.
