SINCE the appointment of special prosecutors by the Attorney General Chambers, a $2M retainer fee is being applied against the attorneys’ fees and cost incurred by the client or expenses paid by the attorney on behalf of the client, as well as $20,000 per hour for legal services rendered in prosecuting matters in court.

This is according to Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Basil Williams, SC. Williams was at the time responding to questions posed by People’s Progressive Party (PPP) member and former Attorney General Anil Nandlall. Nandlall on the question of the hiring of the five special prosecutors asked Williams to provide the National Assembly with information on the number of special prosecutors that have been hired, their salaries and benefits, travel and hotel costs incurred since being appointed.

Additionally, Nandlall questioned the number of cases that the attorneys are handling or have handled for the period January 2017 to March 2018. Williams in a written response circulated in the House on Monday, said thus far, 12 cases have been dealt with by five special prosecutors who assumed duty in June 2017. The attorneys have not incurred any travel and hotel costs thus far.

“It should be noted that agreement signed by the special prosecutors is dated June 7, 2017. Therefore, there would be no cases assigned before that date,” Williams said in response to Nandlall.

Meanwhile, in January 2017, the Guyana Chronicle reported that Cabinet approved the appointment of six attorneys to serve as special prosecutors on several cases, including but not limited to, the range of forensic audits conducted by the APNU+AFC administration when it came into power in May 2015.

The six attorneys are Michael Somersall, Hewely Griffith, Lawrence Harris, Patrice Henry, Compton Richardson, and Trenton Lake. Ministers of Legal Affairs and Public Security, Basil Williams and Khemraj Ramjattan, respectively, were tasked with advising Cabinet on the feasibility of establishing a special prosecutorial team.