Attorney General (AG) Anil Nandlall yesterday announced that there will be a special audit of the spending on legal services by the former APNU+AFC government, including funding the challenge by a private citizen to the no-confidence motion that was passed against it in December 2018.
At a press conference yesterday, Nandlall announced that invoices revealed that in at least one instance, the attorneys who appeared on behalf of a private citizen were also paid by the state.
“[Senior Counsel] Rex McKay and Neil Boston, if you recall, appeared on behalf of Compton Reid in the no-confidence case… they appeared for a private citizen and the AG’s office paid them,” he stressed in reference to his predecessor Basil Williams.
Records released by his office revealed that the two Senior Counsel were paid $12 million by the state.
Reid, a farmer of Errol’s Ville, Vryman’s Erven, New Amsterdam Berbice, had challenged the validity of the deciding vote by then APNU+AFC parliamentarian Charrandass Persaud on the basis of his having dual citizenship. All courts that heard the case found that while the dual citizenship made Persaud ineligible to be a parliamentarian, it did not invalidate his participation and vote in the House as protected in the Constitution.
How Reid
Based on the documentation released by Nandlall yesterday, the challenge to the no-confidence motion, which were ultimately unsuccessful, appears to have cost the state in excess of G$20 million dollars.
In addition to payments made to McKay and Boston, two Barbadian lawyers, Queens Counsel Ralph Thorne and Hal Gallop, were paid US$30,920 and US$15,556, respectively. Grenadian Queen’s Counsel Francis Alexis also earned US$25,000 for the same case.
The records also showed that local attorney Mayo Robertson had submitted invoices for more than $2.5 million for his services.
Significant payments are also due to Maxwell Edwards, who appeared on behalf of Williams in some of the cases. According to Nandlall, Edwards has submitted two separate invoices for $1.8 million, one for $2 million and another for $600,000.
“I just got an invoice from him today,” he noted, before adding that he was sure that these invoices were just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to legal fees now owed by taxpayers.
“We continue to maintain that every one of these cases was without merit,” he said on behalf of the current government.
Nandlall explained that he has over the last two weeks been made aware of other concerning payments and as a result he will be inviting the Audit Office to conduct a forensic audit of the accounting department of the AG’s office.
One of these payments was a $1.7 million remuneration for attorney Roysdale Forde to represent former Finance Minister Winston Jordan when he filed suit against the opposition parliamentarian Juan Edghill.
Nandlall told reporters that since Jordan and not the Minister of Finance filed the case, it was not an appropriate payment.
Asked whether it was likely that government would be able to recover these sums, Nandlall said that steps would be taken to recover any monies wrongly paid.
“The state has a responsibility to take steps to recover sums and the Attorney General’s office has the means to pursue civil remedies,” he explained noting that if criminal conduct is unearthed the Guyana Police Force will be called in.
