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Shadow Minister of Legal Affairs, Mr. Roysdale Forde SC, is contending that the case brought against his client, former Minister of Finance, Mr. Winston Jordan, by the Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Mr. Anil Nandlall SC, into the sale of land to BK Marine Inc. was a diabolical plot.
The case was heard in the High Court by Justice Brassington Reynolds, who ruled the AG’s office was not the party to have filed the action. In handing down his decision last Tuesday, the Judge further ruled the causes of action the AG relied on, in the pleadings and affidavits, were misconceived. In striking out the case, the Judge determined the AG’s claim constituted an abuse of the court’s process.
Jordan and BK Marine Inc. were each awarded costs of $2 million.Speaking with Village Voice about the ruling, the senior counsel said his learned colleague, Nandlall, is incompetent and acting thuggish in not following the law and opting to engage “in a wicked, vile and diabolical plot” to go after Guyanese who have served honourably during the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change government (APNU+AFC). According to Forde, “the court has ended it.”
Back in February 2021, the AG filed a case against Jordan seeking to have the court overturn the sale which he said was undervalued. According to the AG’s claim, the land has been valued at $5 billion but was sold to the proprietor at a fraction of the cost. He was therefore seeking to have the court declare the Agreement of Sale between NICIL and BK Marine Inc repugnant, conflicts with public policy, unlawful, illegal, null and void.
Forde argued his client did nothing wrong; did not act in collusion with NICIL’s acting former Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Colvin Heath-London, NICIL and BK Marine Inc., nor negligently signed the Vesting Order.
In his client’s defence the attorney referenced Section 8 of the Public Corporations Act which states “the Minister, may by order, transfer to a corporation or to any other person, or place under its or his control the whole or part of (a) any undertaking or any other property of any corporation or any other person or other body corporate owned by the State or in which the controlling interest is vested in the State or any agency on behalf of the state.”
On the issue of Vesting Order, he argued the sole duty of his client as minister, who had responsibility for Public Corporations, was to sign, upon Cabinet’s approval, the Order.
The ruling, Forde reiterated, brought an end to the “diabolical plot by an incompetent and thuggish attorney general who was busy trying to threaten journalists in the not too distant past and whose name it was said was being called in the distribution of Identification cards last elections day.”
On March 2 General and Regional Elections, APNU+AFC candidates’ former AG, Mr. Basil Williams SC, and former Minister of Social Protection, Ms. Amna Ally, had a confrontation with Nandlall on the East Coast about allegations the People’s Progressive Party/Civic was distributing identification cards to their supporters to vote more than once.
