A controversial $43M contract to reproduce the updated Laws of Guyana is in limbo as the government says no money was budgeted for it and that its award to a New York-based firm was irregular.

President Bharrat Jagdeo said that no money was set aside either last year or this year to reproduce the updated laws when he briefed the media yesterday on a number of topical issues at the Office of the President.

As a result it is unlikely that the contract would be honoured as he said that no money would be made available to establish the requisite Letter of Credit. The 300 ten-volume sets of the updated laws were due to be completed at the end of next month and substantial work is said to have already been done.

Stabroek News was unable to contact an official of New Global Consults, which was awarded the contract, to get the company's reaction to this development. Questions have been raised as to how the Legal Affairs Ministry went ahead and concluded the contract when no money was budgeted for it and in contravention of established guidelines. The award of the contract was first reported in Stabroek News and followed up by several reports in which questions were raised about the manner of its award.

The President also asserted yesterday that the US$222,500/G$42.8 million contract should not have been given out on the basis of sole sourcing as the requisite skills for executing the contract are available in Guyana. He said that it should have been advertised to give everyone an even break. Local information technology experts had expressed outrage at the way in which the contract was handled.

President Jagdeo said that the Ministry of Legal Affairs should have ascertained how the contract it executed on March 15, with the New York?based New Global Consults Inc would have been funded.

Reiterating that the award of the G$42.8 million contract was irregular, President Jagdeo insisted that as a matter of course the Ministry of Legal Affairs should have checked to determine how the contract was to be paid for.

He is to circulate the relevant documents at the conclusion of the investigation being conducted into the breach of Cabinet's instructions. It is expected that the investigation should be concluded early next week.

According to Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, if a government officer is found culpable for overspending government funds, the regulations provide for that officer to be surcharged the amount of the over-expenditure.

Responding to comments by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Legal Affairs, Ganga Persaud about the Cabinet decision not reflecting the instruction that a "no objection" statement should be obtained from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the President said that there was no need to do so as it was standard practice for a ministry to get such statements from international agencies funding their projects. At the centre of the confusion was an apparent belief at Cabinet level that the contract was to have been funded by the IDB and the required no objection would have been solicited. This was not the case and the contract ended up drawing on the public purse.

Commenting on the Cabinet memorandum on which the decision was based, President Jagdeo conceded that it was not copied by the Finance Ministry to the Ministry of Legal Affairs.

But he said that the project had originated at the Ministry of Legal Affairs and there was correspondence from Claude Marks, the Permanent Secretary (PS) whom Persaud succeeded to the Central Tender Board (CTB) about it. President Jagdeo also alluded to the letter dated February 5, 2001 by Persaud to the CTB seeking a waiver of its procedures.

The President added that the verification of the availability of the funds should have also been pursued at the level of the CTB. The Legal Affairs Ministry PS, Persaud had called a press conference to say that his ministry had fully complied with Cabinet's instructions.

Asked about reports that the contract might have been triggered by a donation to his party, President Jagdeo denied that that was so. He said that at all the fund-raisers he attends he has made a point of having someone else deal with the funds for his party.

He asserted too that the award of the contract did not breach the Court order issued by Justice Claudette Singh banning the conclusion of substantial contracts by the government from January 15, until the March 19 elections were held. He asserted too that it did not breach the voluntary restrictions announced by his government. He explained that the latter only applied to very large contracts, forest concessions involving vast tracts of land and oil exploration leases and infrastructure works.

Asked if he believed the process had been short-circuited because some official believed that because it involved a friend of his the procedures should be waived, the President asserted that no one should make that assumption. He argued that whether a friend of his or not, government procedures have to be followed.

The contract which was signed in March was not announced until May 11. There was some confusion at the ministry as to how the project was to be funded with the Office of the President saying it was funded by the IDB and the Ministry of Legal Affairs saying that it was a Guyana government-funded project.

When the contract award was first reported by Stabroek News, operators in the local information technology sector raised questions about the procedure followed. But it was several weeks before the Office of the President formally broke its silence to say that the Ministry of Legal Affairs had committed funds without its knowledge and an investigation had been mounted to ascertain how the instructions of the Cabinet had been breached.