And now to today's house meeting - where the biggest item coming out of the day's business was a 5 million dollar settlement payment government has to make to Glenn Godfrey for one of those sour sweetheart deals.
Now, we know, Glenn Godfrey and Interco are names that haven't been in the news for a decade - like ghosts of governments past. But Godfrey - in the name of a company called GDG Acquisitions - sued the government on the strength of a 2002 master lease agreement. It's a contract Intelco signed with Government to supply telecommunications equipment. Now, never mind that the equipment never really worked and the company went south faster than a dropped call, the agreement still stands, and government has to pay.
The Barrow administration tried to challenge it in court, but their attorneys advised government to settle the 44 million dollar lawsuit. Today the Prime Minister explained why:..
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow- PM
"That master lease agreement, signed between Glenn Godfrey and the then administration, in fact by Ralf Henry Fonseca, was so absolutely and outrageously one sided that, although initial we had won on some sort of a technicality, our lawyers are saying that on the merits, you can't escape. Our lawyers said we are going to suggest that this stinks to high heaven. But the fact is that Ralf Henry Fonseca, being, as we all thought at the time, at least legally, of sound mind and judgment, on behalf of the administration, presumably with the authority of the Cabinet, signed this one sided lease. And government is bound by the terms. Intelco was relieved, was excused from any obligation whatsoever under the lease, any obligation of the sort that is not just expected and usual but obligatory with respect to commercial understandings. The government agreed to accept this equipment and if it turns out that it is useless, that it is utterly and absolutely rubbish, a piece of junk, we agree that there will and can be no recourse against the man who sold us this absolute junk. So, if it was something that violated every last law in Belize, the government said, 'That is fine, you Mr. Godfrey will simply collect your money and we will have no recourse against you whatsoever.' We were unable to make any claim and to procure any recompense for government and people because of the legally impossible position, the complete give-away that the then administration, by way of the signature of Ralf Henry Fonseca, had in fact engineered."
Government has until December 14, 2018 to pay GDG Acquisitions 2.5 million US dollars.
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