There will be a forensic audit of the expenses of the Attorney General’s Chambers under the former APNU+AFC Government.
This was disclosed on Tuesday by Attorney General Anil Nandlall SC who told Stabroek News that the bulk of payments made in 2019 by the Chambers pertained to attorneys who were hired to prosecute “political cases”. A number of these cases pertain to the legal challenges mounted by APNU+AFC over the motion of no-confidence.
According to the 2019 Auditor General’s report which was recently laid in Parliament, $99.6m was spent on outside attorneys even though the Chambers had its own counsel.
Nandlall said on Tuesday that apart from the $99.6m, a large sum is still owed.
“What the auditor general did was audit the amount expended… a large sum is still outstanding. What is clear from the records, is that they tried to as far as possible pay off the political cases,” Nandlall said.
“So the invoices relating to the political cases were paid off, although they were not earlier in time and there is still left to be paid, millions of dollars in outstanding legal fees for non-political cases… but we will have a forensic audit,” he added.
Nandlall is putting the public on notice that while the next Auditor General’s report will show several millions more spent by his office, it would be for expenses incurred by his predecessor.
“From August to now, I have been making payments where possible. Next year, the Auditor General’s report will reflect that the AG’s Chambers made payments for external counsel during my tenure, but a lot of those payments relate to arrears left by my predecessor, amounting to several millions,” he stressed.
“I hope that the population will remember that I am saying that now,” he added.
Nandlall lamented that external counsel was sought, bypassing in-house attorneys – the Solicitor General, three Deputies and six State Counsel. “The Attorney General was retaining lawyers ad hoc. He was outsourcing work more than they were doing in Chambers,” he said.
He informed that Patrice Henry, brother of former Minister of Education, Nicolette Henry, has since taken him to court for monies owed by the previous Attorney General for work done in legal cases against current government officials.
“(Former Attorney General) Mr (Basil) Williams paid several millions of dollars to retain private prosecutors whom presumably were acting under his direction … to prosecute a number of politically inspired charges. For example, the change against me for the law books, President Irfaan Ali, Dr Ashni Singh, Nigel Dharamlall, Dharamkumar Seeraj, and others.
“What is worse, is that the contract of retainership of those prosecutors, and the monies that were paid and are owed under those contracts, are all unconstitutional and in violation of the doctrine of separation of powers as they constitute a usurpation of the function of the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Article 187 of the constitution vests in the DPP, the sole and exclusive power to prosecute legal matters. The attorney general, as a member of the executive, has no such authority or function. Therefore, Mr Williams, knowingly or unknowingly; more likely the latter than the former, transgressed the functional domain of the DPP by those contracts,” Nandlall said.
Saddled with millions in invoices to be paid along with a number of other expenses, Nandlall said that a forensic audit of the Attorney General’s Chambers will be undertaken.
