Paula Cox objected to a proposal by Ewart Brown to hire an overseas company as consultants on a $400,000 a year retainer, the Commission of Inquiry heard yesterday.

The idea for the Ambling International Consultancy contract was brought to Cabinet by the Premier and Minister of Tourism and Transport, according to commission lawyer Narinder Hargun.

Mr Hargun said: “The Premier told Cabinet that the Minister of Finance had been consulted and did not support the memorandum.

“This is one of the rare situations where the minister was not in favour of this engagement.

“The finance minister told Cabinet she had difficulty supporting the memorandum because the contract had not been put to tender. Her objection was that there was no tender.”

All government contracts worth $50,000 or more require Cabinet approval and the Ambling deal was agreed, despite Ms Cox’s objection.

Mr Hargun said Eddy Benoit, from Atlanta-based Ambling, “was known to Cabinet” and the focus of the consultancy would be the Department of Works and Engineering.

“It is difficult to see what the Ministry of Tourism has to do with it,” said the lawyer. “It’s very marginal.”

The $400,000 contract with Ambling was signed by Department of Tourism chief William Griffith.

“They will receive this [amount] whether any consultancy services are received or not, this is the retainer,” Mr Hargun said.

During yesterday’s hearing, he detailed another Ministry of Tourism contract under scrutiny by the commission, involving US-based company GlobalHue, for $11.4 million a year.

The Auditor-General criticised the company’s contract for not being tendered in a report released in February 2009 and soon after it was renewed for another two years.

GlobalHue used a sub agent called Cornerstone Media to place broadcast ads and the Auditor discovered that Cornerstone’s “mark-up” when it billed GlobalHue was sometimes as much as 186 per cent.

Both contracts will be probed further during the commission’s witness hearings over the course of the next week and a half.

• In the interest of treating the Commission of Inquiry much like continuing court proceedings, The Royal Gazette has taken the decision to disable comments. This is done for the protection legally of both the newspaper and our readers