Attorney General Aishath Azima Shakoor has said that the government has strong legal arguments in favour of terminating its agreement with Nexbis for the border control system project.

The parliament decided yesterday to terminate the government’s agreement with Malaysian company Nexbis signed in 2010, which was followed by the government’s decision to implement the parliament’s decision.

Azima said in an interview with Sun Online today that Immigration Department commenced the project after the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) had advised against doing so, and that the government should have complied with ACC’s advice.

She said that the decision by one state power to terminate the agreement in itself is a strong argument that can be used by the government.

“This will be a strong case, my opinion is that it should have been terminated when ACC advised not to proceed with the contract. Now the parliament has unanimously passed to do the same, which means one state power has made this decision. This cannot be weak,” she said. “The government keeps saying that ACC’s orders must be followed unless the matter is taken to court and the court decided that the ACC’s order was unlawful. The state has given certain authorities to the government, so they have to follow them unless the court rules otherwise. That’s our opinion.”

Azima noted that the Nexbis agreement was made under the law of Singapore, and said that the government has several responsibilities when terminating an agreement. She said that efforts are under way to terminate the agreement in a manner that is least damaging to the government.

She informed that a letter had been sent to Finance Ministry requesting for details of the cost of obtaining advice from Singaporean lawyers, which is required in this process.

She said that no legal research has been conducted yet into terminating the agreement, and that this has been delayed because the government had not made a decision on whether to terminate the agreement until now.

“This also goes to Singapore arbitration, so we will need the advice of several lawyers. We will thoroughly research if the agreement was void ab initio and other grounds. We will definitely terminate the contract as per the government’s decision. But because the government has several responsibilities, we have to research several issues. After that the government will advise the Home Ministry,” she said.

Azima said that the Nexbis contract should have been terminated long ago following ACC’s decision. She said that court processes are not easy in any case, and that resolving issues between two parties in relation to a contract, will also not be easy.

The letter sent by the AG to the Parliament Public Accounts Committee states that the result of terminating the agreement depends on the grounds of doing so, and that the validity of the termination of the contract and the result of doing so will be decided under the law of Singapore in the arbitration process or by a court in Singapore.