A TEAM of lawyers has been assembled to investigate and rectify breached contracts, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall said during a recent episode of Canada’s Live Wire, Diasporic connection.

During the livestreamed programme, the Attorney General stated that the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Works recently informed him of the latest litany of misdoings identified by the Auditor General.

As such, Nandlall said that legal advice was sought from his office on the way forward in dealing with these issues. Specific focus has been placed on recovering monies that were paid to contractors for items that were not delivered or were defective upon delivery.

“I have already assembled, today self, a unit of lawyers within the AG’s chambers to dedicatedly deal with that litany of complaints of which the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Works wrote to me on,” he said.

Already, his office has been filing lawsuits to remedy these issues as the information and cases are made available. Nandlall reminded the virtual audience that he sued former Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson and public officers involved in the reported purchase of motion scales that were fully paid for, though the contract required only some 10 per cent to be paid, with the balance being paid when the scales were recovered.

In this case, he stated that this contract did not go to tender as was required by law; he also noted that all of the funds were paid, but the scales were never received. The AG added that this case is ongoing at the High Court.

“I have several cases, you talk about the camera, the CCTV cameras, the company that they bought the CCTV cameras from when I did my inquiries, the company no longer exists, it went into liquidation; so I don’t think that sum is recoverable,” he said.

Meanwhile, he noted that in the agricultural sector, numerous contracts were entered into where hundreds of millions of dollars were spent to purchase irrigation pumps. None of those pumps are working, however. Nandlall added that machinery was also bought for drainage and irrigation works that are non-functional or substandard.

“These are the outstanding things that we don’t even speak about as a government that we are enduring and trying to address, compliments of our predecessors who are now masquerading as paragons of virtues,” the Attorney General lamented.

Previously, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) cited concerns about persistent non-adherence to store regulations, the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act, and Procurement Act by the accounting officers. The committee also noted instances where accounting officers and engineering staff were cited for signing off on incomplete and unverified projects. Among other infractions was the non-delivery of items after full payments were made by several budget agencies.