Trinidad Express) Ten people, linked by the chain of friendship or family to the PNM, raked in $84 million in legal fees during the years of the Patrick Manning administration, Attorney General Anand Ramlogan disclosed to the Senate on Wednesday.
“Amongst those 10, a former government minister’s husband, brother, brother-in-law,” Ramlogan said. “Sister-in-law too,” added Senate leader Subhas Panday.
UDeCOTT, the AG disclosed, spent $110 million in legal fees and $72 million (or 65 per cent) went to one law firm. To add insult to injury, he said UDeCOTT spent $28 million in legal fees to defend former UDeCOTT chairman Calder Hart before the Uff Commission of Enquiry.
“After all the squandermania, the waste and corruption at UDeCOTT, they spent $28 million to defend that man. And they want me to stop these corruption probes,” Ramlogan said.
In a powerful response to allegations made by Opposition Leader Keith Rowley that he had hired his legal “friends” to investigate corruption, Ramlogan said during the “feeding frenzy” local attorneys were paid over $158 million by the Ministry of the Attorney General. He said a total of $624 million in legal fees were paid by the state during 2002-2010.
“Monkey doh watch he own tail,” the AG quipped.
“When I looked at the Uff Commission of Enquiry… I said ‘Oh my God’… when people ask what criteria was used (by me), how you hired these people (on the A-team to investigate corruption) … I wonder where was that voice when you were in government and they were doing this. The chain of friendship that was built and well natured by the Manning administration in relation to the retention of counsel and legal firms, really reduced itself to a feeding frenzy on the nation’s coffers.”
The Ministry of Health, he noted, paid $22.5 million in legal fees just on the Scarborough Hospital project. That money could have helped complete the hospital for the people of Tobago, he said.
“Could you imagine a minister’s husband, a minister’s brother-in-law, minister’s brother, law firms with distinct identifiable political connections given the personalities that served as partners in those firms, distinct political connections and direct access to the government? They were the choice firms to get the most lucrative work,” Ramlogan thundered.
He noted that while Pennelope Beckles was not a “favoured daughter, I can tell you, Senator Fitzgerald Hinds and Senator Faris Al-Rawi are among them”.
“They too benefited. One was on the panel of FCB getting work. When you go to mortgage your house, to buy anything, you have to pay for the lawyer’s signature,” he said.
“Poor lawyers who come from poor families, like myself, like Mr Panday, when you graduate from law school and you top the law faculty, there is no space for people like you and me in this country. You have to have connections; you have to have parents who frequent the cocktail circuit; you have to have a father who could play golf; and most importantly you must have a connection with the ruling party of the day,” he said.