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13/03/08

Contract Fulfilment Failure?

If one were to assume that the reports disseminated to the public and the media are factual, then two years ago, the Government of St. Lucia contracted a number of British officers to come and assist the Royal St. Lucia Police Force by putting the expertise they had amassed over their years of service in Britain to training and advising the local officers, thereby improving their skills and shaping them into more efficient, professional lawmakers.
Regardless of which political party formed the Government at the time – we all know it was the SLP – a contract signed by the government remains binding even if the party in power changes.
It would be interesting to discover whether the contracts that required the Britons to train our officers still hold, or whether the incoming government broke them and issued new ones upon assuming office … if so, at what time did they do so and why were citizens not made aware that the St. Lucian Government had again gone back on a binding agreement made in their name?

If however, we assume that no contracts were broken and that the ones signed by the Kenny Anthony administration continue to be the ones in force (no pun intended), then the Britons who were contracted with the commitment to train and prepare our locals with the aim of making them into efficient and professional officers would have failed in the accomplishment of the job they had been contracted to do and for which we have been paying them such lavish emoluments, were they not to succeed in moulding our people into officers capable of assuming responsible positions within the hierarchy of the organization.
Therefore, would it be safe to say that if – as is reported – Mr. John Broughton has written to the Prime Minister advising him that there is no local officer sufficiently trained to assume the post of Commissioner (which his contract intimates that he is being paid to deliver), he is stating/admitting that he has failed to fulfil the conditions for which he was employed and could be considered in breach?
What is the taxpayers’ legal redress, in such a case?