By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterTHE JUDICIAL Review Court has thrown out an application by Moore's Air Express Service Limited to compel Postmaster General (PMG) Dr. Blossom O'Meally-Nelson to consider some 69 contracts for tenders for mail and staff transportation which the Postmaster claimed had arrived after the tender boxes were sealed.
The tender evaluation process had been on hold pending the court case, and the ruling means that the tenders which were deposited on time can now be considered.
FAILED TO PROVE
Mr. Justice Lennox Campbell, in handing down his decision yesterday, held that the applicant failed to prove that the Postmaster General's action in not accepting the bids was "outrageous and in defiance of logic or accepted moral standards."
Moore's has been a business partner of the postal services for almost 50 years.
The judge said that the advertised guidelines published by the PMG department were in conformity with the guidelines issued by the National Contracts Commission as it pertained to the deadline for submission for tenders.
In dismissing the application, the judge upheld submissions by attorneys-at-law Cheryl Lewis and Annalesia Lindsay of the Attorney-General's Department that there was no evidence of lack of impartiality on the part of the PMG, there was no evidence that she took irrelevant matters into consideration, or that she disregarded relevant matters as the applicant had alleged.
DISPUTE AROSE
A dispute arose between the parties as to whether the applications for tender for mail and worker transportation services were submitted after the deadline for tender, which was advertised as 3:00 p.m. on February 3, 2003.
Moore's Air Express Service contended that its representatives went to the Central Sorting Office, Kingston, at least six minutes before 3:00 p.m. on the day to put some 69 applications for tender in the box provided at the Central Sorting Office, South Camp Road, Kingston.
It claimed that its representatives were barred from putting the applications in the box. Some of the 69 applications belonged to other contractors.
But the Postal Department claims that Moore's representatives arrived after the 3:00 p.m. deadline and that the tender boxes had already been sealed.
Moores Air Express Service which is owned by businessman Charles Moore, who is also president of the Jamaica Mail Co-operative Society (JMCS), took the matter to the Supreme Court seeking several declarations that the decision of the PMG and her representatives not to allow its representatives to drop the tenders in the box were arbitrary and unreasonable.
Moore's had also alleged bias on the part of the PMG in her refusal to consider the applications.
Mr. Justice Cambpell in his ruling said the Postal Department "must have a right, subject to its legal framework, to set policy and implement the policy as it sees fit, even if the implementation is inimical to the interest of other entities."
The judge said the decision taken by the PMG was clearly in its own self-interest and was permissible.
Costs were awarded in favour of the PMG, who was the respondent in the case.
Attorney-at-law Wendell Willkins, who along with Dennis Morrison, Q.C. represented the applicant, had applied for a stay of execution of the judge's order. The judge denied the request, pointing out that throughout the duration of the litigation, the tender process had been on hold.
Another suit is pending in the Supreme Court in which Moore's has sued the postal services department to recover $34 million with interest.
