Describing the Chambers of the Attorney General and the Ministry of Legal Affairs as being “demonstrably dormant” for the past five years under the former APNU+AFC Administration, Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill, in his presentation of the 2020 National Budget outlined his government’s plan for the Justice Sector which he said contained “a packed legislative agenda.”
Edghill chided the former government for spending what he said was hundreds of millions of dollars at the expense of taxpayers on, among other things, retaining lawyers both locally and abroad to pursue litigation which according to him had no merit.
He singled out a 2017 US$8 million Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)-funded support programme for Criminal Justice which he said was “treated like the best kept secret,” under the legal affairs ministry.
Edghill said that the programme appears to have been deeply shrouded in secrecy as neither the Opposition in Parliament, important stakeholders in society, nor ordinary Guyanese knew what it was until the PPP/C made components of the programme public.
The public works minister said that a staggering US$2 million was spent on the programme, largely for expenditures, including salaries and wages, and rental and costs associated with accommodation.
He then turned his attention to the Law Reform Commission which he told the Speaker was the subject of a Bill tabled in the House under the IDB project, but said that three years hence, not a single Commissioner was appointed though payment of staff and rental for what he called a “phantom” Commission totalled tens of millions of dollars.
Edghill told the Speaker that aspects of the project are under review by government and adjustments are likely to be made for the project to now be fully implemented.
According to the Minister, another agency which had what he described as a “parasitic” effect on the treasury by the former Administration, was the State Assets Recovery Agency (SARA) which he said never recovered a single piece of state property.
“It is illegally constituted,” he declared; while adding that all it did since its existence was to file a few cases in respect of plots of land sold by the PPP/C Adminis-tration at market value and file proceedings against a leading commercial bank for a plot of land purchased from the State over a decade ago.
He said that hundreds of millions of dollars was expended on that entity every year.
Edghill said that apart from a few Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Bills, “which were hastily enacted in late 2015 and early 2016,” there was no major legislation passed under the previous regime.
And even the very AML/CFT Bills he said were drafted during the PPP/C Administration, “which the APNU+AFC used their one-seat majority to vote down during the 10th Parliament.”
He told the Speaker, however, that one area in which there was great activity at the Attorney General’s Chambers under the previous Administration, was the hiring of special prosecutors and retaining lawyers, both locally and across the Caribbean, to represent the Government, as well as private individuals in a series of political litigations, all of which according to him were “completely without merit and all of which were eventually lost.”
According to him, “this abuse of power costed taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The public works minister advanced that with “renewed visionary leadership,” the PPP/C government has already reoriented itself on a new course and has a packed legislative agenda, which he said will begin to unfold just after the passage of the Budget.
On this point he said that many new initiatives will be implemented in collaboration with the Deeds and Commercial Registry Authority, which he said will be modernised, thus resulting in greater efficiency.
He said collaboration will be explored with the Judiciary on measures to be adopted to produce greater speed in the delivery of justice which he said will include the constitutional process for the appointment of additional judges under a new Judicial Service Commission.
Edghill said, too, that the AML/CFT structure will remain under constant review, with direct focus on the area of enforcement.
He stated that the Special Organised Crime Unit will be transformed from a “politically witch-hunting unit,” to the enforcement arm of the AML/CFT structure, as originally envisaged.
