And keeping up with what has been a very busy March for him - the Prime Minister will also be meeting the Royals on the weekend.
But, when we had him today, we also asked him about that judgment from Justice Sonya Young which says that he and his Ministry failed to properly follow the Finance and Audit Reform Act when his government awarded the 3.3 Million dollar contract to Smart/Speednet.
As we showed you last week, Senator Michael Peyrefitte complained that something is wrong with the decision from the PM's Ministry to award that contract to Smart, which is partially owned by the PM's family. He pointed out to the court that the Prime Minister's brother, Jaime, is chairman and a substantial shareholder of Smart.
But, the judge, after reviewing the entire case, has concluded that he didn't prove that there was anything questionable about the award. Smart was perfectly able to participate in the bidding process, and the inclusion of Smart as a potential provider of the Microsoft licenses actually created increased competition.
The PM was vindicated in that instance, but the judge also found the PM and his Ministry acted unlawfully when they failed to seek the Contractor General's review prior to executing this contract with Smart. Here is what Briceno had to say when the press asked about the judgment:
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I don't think it is a split decision, I think it is a win for the government because the most important thing was that it showed that I had no involvement and the judge said it out, as a government, we have the responsibility to get the best price possible and BTL needs to learnt o compete. And third the issue where you're talking about the split, it's a matter that we immediately acknowledge, it seems the financial secretary, in his haste, because remember the services were coming to an end, I think it was June, I don't remember the exact month, June or May, only a few days was left before the Microsoft office 360 came to an end and so he was concerned that he doesn't want then that all of a sudden all these programs would not be able to work within the government system so he quickly approved the license or the contract to Speednet. I think he even wet a step further and had BTL to extend their contract for a few more months to ensure that there is a smooth transfer from one contract to the next so it was done more in a matter of haste. Obviously there should have been better planning that we should have done this at least a month before so that we don't get into these kind of situations so yes it was a matter that we quickly agreed that they did not go to the contractor general but the contractor general although after the fact, gave his report, and in his report he saw nothing wrong with the contract and he would have approved it anyway."
