Attorney General Anand Ramlogan fired back at the People's National Movement (PNM) Wednesday revealing that 10 people, linked to the party through friendship or family to the PNM, received $84 million in legal fees from the Manning administration."Amongst those 10, a former Government minister's husband, brother, brother-in-law," Ramlogan told the Senate during the debate on the budget.
During the budget debate in the House of Representatives, Opposition Leader Keith Rowley accused Ramlogan of giving his friends and an A-team comprising his "brothers in law" a $13 million brief to conduct forensic investigations in several government institutions including UDeCOTT and Petrotrin.
Ramlogan told Senators UDeCOTT spent $110 million in legal fees and $72 million went to one law firm.
He added that what was worse is that UDeCOTT spent $28 million in legal fees to defend former UDeCOTT chairman Calder Hart before the Uff Commission of Enquiry.
"After all the squandermania, the waste and corruption at UDeCOTT, they spent $28 million to defend that man. And they want me to stop these corruption probes," Ramlogan declared.
Describing the PNM expenditure as a "feeding frenzy" the AG said the Ministry of the Attorney General in the PNM administration paid local attorneys over $158 million and the state paid a total of $624 million in legal fees in the period 2002 to 2010.
In reference to Rowley's charge, Ramlogan said when people ask what criteria he used to hire his team to investigate corruption he wonders "where was that voice when you were in government and they were doing this."
He said, "The chain of friendship that was built and well nurtured by the Manning administration in relation to the retention of counsel and legal firms, really reduced itself to a feeding frenzy on the nation's coffers."
Continuing to expose the payments, Ramlogan said the Ministry of Health paid $22.5 million in legal fees on the Scarborough Hospital project, noting that the money could have been used to complete the hospital.
"Could you imagine a minister's husband, a minister's brother-in-law, minister's brother, law firms with distinct identifiable political connections given the personalities that served as partners in those firms, distinct political connections and direct access to the government?
"They were the choice firms to get the most lucrative work," Ramlogan said.
Noting that Pennelope Beckles was not a "favoured daughter" Ramlogan named others. "I can tell you, Senator Fitzgerald Hinds and Senator Faris Al-Rawi are among them...
"Poor lawyers who come from poor families, like myself, like Mr Panday, when you graduate from law school and you top the law faculty, there is no space for people like you and me in this country.
"You have to have connections; you have to have parents who frequent the cocktail circuit; you have to have a father who could play golf; and most importantly you must have a connection with the ruling party of the day," he said.
Ramlogan charged that one set of law chambers in Port of Spain repeatedly got all the briefs.
"One senior counsel and two junior counsels were repeatedly retained. They became overnight experts in criminal law, extradition, dog bite man, man bite dog, whatever you had, any kind of case.
"Law lecturers—whether from the Mona campus, St Augustine ... suddenly got juicy briefs from the State. They managed to juggle a full-time lectureship while being in the court every day...
"You see when they wish to cast aspersions on us and talk about friends and family, let me set the record clear: the Government and the Attorney General is not related in any way to any of the persons on those corruption probes. Let them take that. These are the facts!"
Ramlogan said the $213 million paid in legal fees by his ministry during the PNM administration was only part of the expenditure and did not include the state enterprise sector.
"It is almost as though litigation is artificially created, manufactured and generated to sustain certain individuals, and senior longstanding members of the inner bar are bypassed in favour of a chosen few. They have no qualms in hiring their friends and family, they kept it hush-hush," he said.
Ramlogan stated that the government paid for expensive legal advice that could normally be given by the office of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel and Solicitor General.
He also had figures for what the state paid to foreign law firms during the Manning administration - $213 million.
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