New Global Consults Inc, the Queens, NY-based company has halted production of the 300 ten-volume set of the revised Laws of Guyana it was contracted to produce until the probe by the government into the award of the contract is concluded.

An official of the company, Kawall Totaram told Stabroek News on Friday from New York the company did not think it wise to proceed any further until the investigation was completed.

He explained that to bring the work to a stage where it was ready for printing meant collating all the information on the 168 floppy disks his company had been provided with onto one disc. He said that the Customs Act, which was still to be provided by the Ministry of Legal Affairs, also has to be included.

Stabroek News understands that the government has not provided the advance payment as required by the terms of the contract and that could have been another consideration in New Global Consults' decision not to expend any more money than it had already. President Bharrat Jagdeo had declared that there was no provision in the budget for funding the contract and that none would be made. Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, had told reporters recently that the issue might well have to be settled by the courts.

The US$222,500/$42.8 million contract was signed on March 15, by representatives of New Global Consults Inc and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Legal Affairs, Ganga Persaud. However, when questions were raised in Stabroek News about the issue the Office of the President said that Persaud had committed the Cabinet to expenditure about which it was unaware. It claimed that the Cabinet memo it had approved had indicated that the contract was to be funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and that its approval was to be sought for the sole sourcing of the contract to New Global Consults Inc.

Persaud has since been suspended on full pay after the Office of the President recommended that disciplinary measures be instituted against him. However, until the Attorney General's Chambers determines the charges to be laid, it cannot proceed to name a panel to investigate them.