FORMER Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, was on Monday arrested and questioned over some $2.5M worth of law reports which he had taken away from the Ministry of Legal Affairs, allegedly with the permission of former President Donald Ramotar.
Back in November 2015, the then Permanent Secretary of the Legal Affairs Ministry, Indira Ananjit, was sent on 52 days leave after the law books, reportedly valued $2.5 million, were found missing. This caused an audit to be launched by the Auditor General’s office to locate the books. During the audit the PPP MP told the auditors that he was subscribing to a company that was producing the books and when he was appointed as AG he requested from Ramotar that the state pays for the reports.
However, the then Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Legal Affairs, Melissa Tucker, in her response to the audit findings made it clear that the ministry was never preview to any condition of service for Nandlall, which included the purchase of law reports.
Tucker said the “the alleged agreement between the former AG and former President Ramotar circumvents the procedural accountability of the Budget Agency that is governed by the Stores Regulations 1993 and the FMAA 2003.” She added that the purchase of the law books, using public funds for Nandlall’s personal use was “a flagrant misuse of public funds. Property bought with public funds by the ministry ought to remain the property of the ministry,” Tucker stated.
Nandlall had explained that when he was appointed Attorney General, he requested as part of his contract of service for the Government of Guyana to stand the expense for his subscriptions for the Commonwealth Law Books. He had subscribed to Lexis Nexis, the publishers of the Law reports.
“I was subscribing to this particular law report over a decade before my appointment as Attorney General. When I was offered the position, one of the conditions I asked for is for the Government of Guyana to continue to pay the subscription of these books, because I did not want to break the subscription,” Nandlall had pointed out.
Insisting that nothing was abnormal about the practice, the former AG had argued that it was done by other Government Ministries such as Finance and Health. He had expressed awareness that for decades prior, the Government had paid for professional and technical publications, journals, periodicals, magazines. This, he said, had been done for ministers, as well as professional and technical personnel.
At a press conference held at Freedom House Monday after being released by SOCU, Nandlall said that the law books are in his possession and he has no intention of returning it to the State.
Nandlall confirmed that SOCU has a search warrant for one of his properties, where the law books are being kept. However, he said SOCU has since been informed that the keys to the property are in the possession of someone who is out of the jurisdiction.
“They have a search warrant, the premises are secured and the keys are with someone overseas. That person is coming in tomorrow evening,” Nandlall said.
When asked if he would repay for the books, Nandlall said then that when he told investigators that he was willing to buy an entire set and donate it to the Ministry, the investigator related that the return of the law books was not the issue, he was.
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo said of all the hundreds of cases that SOCU has in their care and the billions of dollars the APNU/AFC government has accused People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C)’s Members of stealing, it appears that a major case for the unit is dealing with Anil Nandlall ownership of a few law books. “They probably don’t even have a mandate to investigate this issue, these law books can be purchased for GYD $400,000 and this has become a big act of corruption that this government is pursuing when they had claimed that PPP members stole over $305B,” Jagdeo said.
Jagdeo noted that SOCU doesn’t appear to be going after money launderers, drug trafficker or serious financial crimes, but seems fascinated with inconsequential matters involving the PPP. Jagdeo said he had urged the government, over a year ago, to hire an international firm to track down large sums of monies that they claimed PPP stashed away in accounts overseas as the government had claimed. However, this was never done.
