Court sets aside order for govt to pay K4.4mil

By TREVOR WAHUNE
A COURT has cleared the Government of an earlier order to pay a consultancy firm K4.4 million, agreeing with its submission that there had been “procedural irregularities”.
Finance Secretary Dr Ken Ngangan, through lawyer Milfred Wangatau from the Solicitor-General’s Office, had asked the court to set aside the order to pay K4,456,971 to Tika and Associates on Oct 11 last year, arguing that he did not issue the instructions to former acting Solicitor-General Faith Barton-Keene to enter into such consent orders.
The court had awarded a default judgment late last year when no one from the Solicitor-General’s Office turned up in court to defend a claim by landowners of that sum they said was owed to them.
Barton-Keene was away at a conference overseas. She was relieved of that position by Justice Minister Davis Steven later. Justice Oagile Key Dingake last Friday rejected the arguments by Tika and Associate that the case be discontinued because the consent orders earlier given for the payment were final.
Justice Dingake said cases were dealt with in their own merit, considering the “different circumstances surrounding them”.
“This court has the power under Section 155(4) to set aside such consent orders if it finds procedural irregularities,” Justice Dingake said.
Justice Dingake said discontinuous of proceeding should not be understood in isolation and discontinuous of proceedings should not extinguish the court’s powers to set aside consent orders.
Justice Dingake held that although consent orders could be final, it should be understood that the effect of them in this case was to grant the relief in favour of the plaintiff against the State while the consent orders were not obtained properly from the attorney-general.