IINFORMATION Minister Daryl Vaz has said that he will be suing the Sunday Herald newspaper over yesterday’s lead story which reported that he had negotiated a generous agreement with the tax department over an outstanding $74-million GCT bill owed by Ultimate Exotics Limited, a company of which he is a principal shareholder.

The article also said that Vaz’s car dealership company owed over $400 million in taxes up to November 2010.

But yesterday, Vaz dismissed the claims as erroneous and spurious, and said that the Sunday Herald has endeavoured over the last few weeks to sully his reputation and scupper his chances of being victorious at the upcoming internal elections of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

“The tax department cannot and does not divulge people’s tax records, and so to make this despicable claim which has no foundation requires me to take legal action,” Vaz said yesterday.

“Over the past several weeks, the Sunday Herald has sought to paint me as a criminal and impute that I am involved in nefarious activities. I have largely ignored its gutter journalism and its erroneous articles aimed at the Government and myself, choosing instead to keep my own counsel. This time, however, I am compelled to seek legal redress to what is obviously a libellous stain on both myself and my family,” said Vaz.

“The information in that article is false and smacks of political brinkmanship. It is clear for all to see that the Sunday Herald is assuredly aligned with the People’s National Party and is an agent of its bidding,” said Vaz.

Vaz, who appears to be a strong favourite to win next Sunday’s election for the post of JLP general secretary, gave what he said was an example of the Sunday Herald’s unremitting efforts to besmirch his name and reputation. He pointed to a recent article about his ex-business partner which, he said, tried to marry him to the incident reported although it had nothing whatsoever to do with him.

“Nowhere in the article in question is it mentioned that my ex-partner is married to Deputy Prime Minister Ken Baugh’s daughter, yet it chooses to focus on me,” he said.

“This tabloid heaps abuses on me week in, week out, and it has got to stop’, he said. “It is beginning to look like if I don’t feature in some headline, the Sunday Herald cannot sell, which says a lot about that media house.

“I have been through a lot in my 47 years and I am a fighter. As old-time Jamaican folk say: “People don’t throw stone at fluxy mango.”