EDWARD Seaga yesterday announced that he had placed his firm, Premium Investments Limited (PIL), into liquidation in order to pay off nearly $150 million in General Consumption Tax (GCT) and penalties owed by another of his companies, Town and Country Resorts Ltd (TCRL), which operated his Enchanted Garden Hotel.

“I took this unusual decision of placing Premium Investments Ltd, a financially solvent company, into liquidation because it is the surest way to protect the interests of the creditors and allow for the future development of The Enchanted Garden as a prime resort,” Seaga said, in a statement that represented his first comment since a Privy Council ruling on the issue on July 30.

Seaga, who is also the leader of the opposition, began a long legal battle with the tax authorities in 1999 when, through the St Ann Magistrate’s Court, they moved to collect $12.3 million in GCT collected by the Ocho Rios hotel, but not remitted, plus another $27.3 million in penalties and interest.

But before the case could be completed, Premium and Town and Country took out an originating summons in the Supreme Court, asking it to rule that American firm, DHC Ocho Rios Hospitality Corporation, which had a contract to manage the hotel, was liable for the debt.

The court ruled against Seaga’s companies and that decision was upheld by the Appeal Court.

The Judicial Committee of the United Kingdom Privy Council, in agreeing with the Jamaican courts, said that it was of the clear opinion that the liability belonged to TCRL as the registered taxpayer.

“Concurrent liability of an agent under Section 23A (of the General Consumption Tax Act) cannot exclude the principal’s liability any more than it does under Section 58 of the Act or Section 52 of the Tax Collection Act,” the law lords said.

Yesterday, Seaga said that Premium, which owns The Enchanted Garden, has substantial assets. “Its estimated surplus after payment of its debts in full is in excess of $200 million,” he said in his statement.

He said he had handed over control of Premium and Town and Country to a liquidator who would now be responsible for disposing of Premium’s assets “in an effort to service the debts of TCRL and its creditors”.

Seaga did not name the liquidator, but yesterday on HOT 102’s evening programme, one of his lawyers, Chris Bovell, identified the liquidator as Douglas Chambers, a chartered accountant.

Although Seaga and his attorneys have insisted that he had no personal debt to the tax authorities, the issue had dogged the opposition leader through last October’s general elections, providing much fodder for his political opponents.

Leading up to the election, Seaga, apparently hurting from the comments, announced that if his financial problems remained unresolved and he won the election, he would not accept the job as prime minister.

Earlier yesterday, before Seaga’s announcement, Attorney-General and Justice Minister A J Nicholson used the Privy Council ruling to push the Government’s strong support for the proposed Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to which Seaga is opposed.

Nicholson argued that the case vindicated the Government’s stance on the impartiality of jurisprudence in Jamaica and the region, a concern raised by the CCJ’s critics.

“This case shows that what we have been saying all along is true… that the five judges in the Privy Council found no reason to dissent from anything that has been said by our (Jamaica’s) four judges; in the first instance, by Justice Orr and the three judges in the Court of Appeal,” Nicholson told a forum to explain the financing of the CCJ. “They have come to the same conclusion.”

“It cannot be said that any of the judges who had heard the case before, that there was any kind of bias attached to them. There was no dissenting voice by any of the four, none of them dissented, so it can never be said that there was any bias either for the Government or for Mr Seaga’s companies,” said Nicholson.

However, another of Seaga’s lawyers, Abe Dabdoub, in a later interview with the Observer, said Nicholson was being “intellectually dishonest” in his assessment.

“It is like saying the Privy Council is against hanging… they are not, what they say is that you can’t have a man locked away for a long period without making a decision… they are saying you have a constitution, stick by it,” said Dabdoub.