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.