Describing the Ministry of Legal Affairs as being “dormant” over the past five years, Attorney General (AG) Anil Nandlall yesterday told the National Assembly that a clear legislative agenda is now in place as he promised less wastage in spending and the delivery of judicial reforms under his stewardship.
During his contribution to the debate of the 2020 national budget at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, Nandlall decried the record of his predecessor, Basil Williams, while citing almost $100 million in spending on what he dubbed a “phantom Commission” and even more on private attorneys.
According to Nandlall, apart from a few Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) bills, which he said were hastily enacted in late 2015 and early 2016, no major legislation was passed.
Opposition Member of Parliament (MP) Roysdale Forde SC, in his maiden presentation before the House, however, challenged this claim, stating that Nandlall’s pronouncements were far from the truth. According to the main opposition’s shadow minister, the record of the Assembly would show that 2015 to 2020 has been one of the most active periods of legislative activity and was marked by the passage of significant and consequential bills.
He said that a total of 96 Acts and 208 pieces of subsidiary legislation were produced by the Attorney General’s Cham-bers and he highlighted what he described as notable improvements in the AML/CFT regulatory framework. This, Forde said, was what was required to remove Guyana from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) blacklists. These progressive steps, coupled with the AML/CFT action plan, were commended by the FATF, he added.
Further refuting Nandlall’s claims of inactivity at the ministry over the last five years, Forde said that during the Eleventh Parliament the APNU+AFC crafted legislative framework to address corruption by enacting the State Assets Recovery Act 2017, the Witness Protection Act 2018, and the Protected Disclosures Act 2018.
He said, too, that several pieces of legislation, aimed at promoting a strong and resilient financial system, modernising the financial sector and providing protection and greater access to services within the sector, were enacted. In this vein, he cited the Insurance Act 2016; the National Payments System Act 2018; the Deposit Insurance Act 2018; the Bank of Guyana (Amendment) Act 2018; and the Financial Institutions (Amendment) Act 2018.
The MP said there were several other Acts, including the Constitution (Amend-ment) Act 2015; the Coroner’s Act 2016; the Public Utilities Act 2016; the Telecom-munications Act 2016; and the Cyber-crime Act 2016 + 2018.
‘Phantom Commission’
But highlighting what he advanced to be inadequacies, Nandlall said that the ministry begun to administer a US$8 million Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) funded support programme for supporting the Criminal Justice System in 2017, but added that it was treated like a secret, since the parliamentary opposition and other stakeholders knew what it was until he recently exposed components of the programme.
The AG said that in 2017 a bill was tabled before the House for the establishment of a Law Reform Commission (LRC) under the project, but three years hence, not a single Commissioner has been appointed although rental, payment of staff and other costs for this “phantom Commission” total approximately $98.3 million with no output.
He said that the project is now being fully implemented with aspects of it under review for likely adjustments.
Nandlall said that the LRC Act will be amended to make the Commission broad-based. He said that currently under the Act, the minister and the president appoints the entire Commission without any consultation but that amendments will ensure appointments are made from nominees of the Private Sector Commission, the labour movement, religious organisations, the legal profession and organisations representing rights and consumer protection.
He also said that a government building has already been secured to house the Commission free of cost, which will immediately save taxpayers $850,000 a month. But rebutting the AG, Forde told the House that the Criminal Justice System Reform Programme was far from shrouded in secrecy as it has been widely reported in the media. He said that under the programme, Guidelines, Rules and Procedures for the implementation of a Restorative Justice Programme have been developed and that further, a Restorative Justice Bill of 2019 has been laid in the Assembly.
Special audit
According to Nandlall, one area in which he did find great activity at the AG’s Chambers was that of hiring special prosecutors and retaining lawyers, both locally and overseas, to represent the APNU+AFC government as well as private individuals, in a series of political litigation, all of which he said were without merit and eventually failed.
The AG said that upon his ascension to office, dozens of invoices could be found for lawyers retained during which he called “the melee of madness, the five months from March to August 2020, when a series of disgraceful and useless cases were filed, in an effort to get the judiciary to conspire with the rigging cabal at Congress Place to pervert democracy.”
Nandlall announced that a special audit is currently being undertaken by the Auditor General’s Office, in relation to these expenditures, but said that from invoices found, the Chambers paid the staggering sum of $146,099,180 from 2017 to 2020 to private lawyers.
“This carnage of taxpayers’ dollars will be halted under this Administration,” he said.
The AG then moved to address the State Asset Recovery Agency (SARA), which he said was another agency which had a parasitic effect on the treasury.
He said that it has not recovered a single state asset since its formation four years ago and is in fact illegally constituted, with a Director and Deputy Director, neither of whom was appointed by the National Assembly as mandated by the SARA Act.
Yet, according to Nandlall, the two were allowed to draw salaries at a rate of $1M and $700,000, a month respectively, with gratuity and benefits for the past four years. He said that they alone “carted off” over $100 million in emoluments, excluding other benefits.
The AG said that the PPP/C government will shut down this unit shortly, while noting that some of the staff will be absorbed by various state agencies.
But Forde in response to government’s plans to shut down SARA said that the move is reprehensible and is the first salvo on the independence of public institutions. “Dark days are ahead,” he proclaimed.
According to Forde, the PPP/C has always been afraid of strong independent institutions. “It is their ideological posture to suppress strong independent institutions. It is always their preoccupation to sap Institutions of their Independence and subject them to the PPP/C’s political direction and control,” he said.
Nandlall said that with “renewed visionary leadership,” his ministry has already reoriented itself on a new course and has a packed legislative agenda, which will begin to unfold just after the budget debates are concluded.
He said that many new initiatives will be implemented in collaboration with the Deeds and Commercial Registry Authority, which he said will modernise and bring greater efficiency to its functioning. He said also that important measures will be implemented in collaboration with the judiciary to produce greater speed in the judicial system and will include the appointment of additional judges under a new soon to be appointed Judicial Service Commission.
The AG said that Guyana’s AML/CFT structure will remain under constant review, with focus on enforcement. In this regard he said that the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) will be transformed from a “political witch-hunting unit” to the investigative and enforcement arm of the AML/CFT structure.
Under the US$8 million IDB programme, Nandlall outlined a number of initiatives which he said will be implemented. Among them he said will be the launch of a new programme at the University of Guyana to train LL.B graduates, as well as police, to place them as prosecutors in the Magistrates’ Courts.
Also, he said that guidelines will be formulated in relation to pre-trial detention and non-custodial measures, while rehabilitation programmes for drug users and restorative justice programmes will be launched.
He said that the ministry will partner with other agencies in the government to strengthen probation services, legal aid services, community service programmes and trainings, sentencing guidelines and a series of legislative initiatives, all designed to keep young offenders from custodial detention.
In terms of the legislative agenda, that AG said that a Bail Bill, Hire Purchase Bill, a new Arbitration Bill, amendments to the Companies Act and a series of legislation for the petroleum industry and various other sectors are all in various stages of progress, while noting that there is a provision in the budget of $25 million for capital works that will commence on the ministry’s main building.
