Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

The State has forked out close to $2 mil­lion in tax­pay­ers' mon­ey to pay at­tor­ney Jagdeo Singh for le­gal ser­vices ren­dered last year to a state en­ter­prise. Singh re­ceived $1,369,000 for 18 mat­ters for Sep­tem­ber 2011. In five of those he was re­quired on­ly to sub­mit a le­gal opin­ion. In one in­stance he was paid $83,000 for a sam­ple con­struc­tion con­tract for the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC).

The PTSC is one of the state en­ter­pris­es un­der the Min­istry of Trans­port. The T&T Guardian ob­tained doc­u­ments which in­di­cat­ed the fees paid to Singh. Ac­cord­ing to the PTSC ven­dor ledger for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 24 to De­cem­ber 15, 2011, Singh ac­cu­mu­lat­ed $1,935,000 in le­gal fees. There were no en­tries for March, May, June, Ju­ly, Au­gust or Oc­to­ber.

There were pub­lished re­ports that Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj al­leged­ly made re­quests for Singh and For­tis Cham­bers to be re­tained to pro­vide le­gal ser­vices to the Port Au­thor­i­ty (PATT) and the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty (AATT), which al­so fall un­der the Min­istry of Trans­port.

The chair­men of those boards-Clive Spencer and Va­man Ba­j­nath-were sub­se­quent­ly axed af­ter al­leged­ly falling out with Ma­haraj. Spencer, in Oc­to­ber last year, said he felt the dis­missal was as a re­sult of his fail­ure to fol­low Ma­haraj's in­struc­tions on le­gal ser­vice providers.

In the case of the AATT, a "spe­cial re­quest" was made that favourable con­sid­er­a­tion be giv­en to Singh for the Orop­une Gar­dens le­gal port­fo­lio, which Ba­j­nath oblig­ed. Ba­j­nath, in an in­ter­view in No­vem­ber, said he had writ­ten to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar with the list of spe­cial re­quests.

In De­cem­ber 2010, Ma­haraj was ap­point­ed PTSC chair­man, but six months lat­er was made Trans­port Min­is­ter when the PM an­nounced her first Cab­i­net reshuf­fle. Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce an­oth­er Cab­i­net reshuf­fle soon.

Singh is al­so rep­re­sent­ing the State in the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup.

A two-page pur­chase jour­nal at the PTSC, which con­tained a record of pay­ments, had columns with dates, ac­count IDs, in­voice, line de­scrip­tion, deb­it and cred­it amounts, and list­ed the 18 mat­ters for Sep­tem­ber, to­talling $1,369,000. Each page was stamped. Twelve of the in­voic­es were dat­ed Oc­to­ber 19; one was dat­ed Au­gust 22; and the five opin­ions were dat­ed Oc­to­ber 6. Most of the mat­ters were be­tween the Trans­port In­dus­tri­al Work­ers' Union and the PTSC.

Singh re­ceived $257,000 for his le­gal opin­ion on five mat­ters:

• Con­tract for ad­ver­tis­ing–$25,5000

• Sam­ple maxi-taxi con­ces­sion­aires' agree­ment–$18,000

• Bus sim­u­la­tor sales agree­ment–$50,500

• Sam­ple con­struc­tion con­tract–$83,000

• Dis­abled bus­es con­tract–$80,500

Five in­voic­es for coun­sel's fees dat­ed Oc­to­ber 19, 2011, ad­dressed to cor­po­rate sec­re­tary Maris­sa Ram­soon­dar, were signed by Singh and sent to the trans­port com­pa­ny from his 13 Have­lock Street, Port-of-Spain of­fice. Ram­soon­dar, an at­tor­ney, was at­tached to Free­dom House Law Cham­bers, which At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan once head­ed.

The in­voic­es were stamped on the same day by the "cor­po­rate sec­re­tary" and ap­proved by the man­ag­er, le­gal ser­vices, on No­vem­ber 7. Ram­soon­dar now heads the le­gal ser­vices de­part­ment. The five in­voic­es were each billed at $95,500 with the same par­tic­u­lars. Singh list­ed his ad­vo­cate fees at $2,500 an hour.

• For re­ceiv­ing in­struc­tions–$500

• Pe­rus­ing and read­ing briefs (two hours)–$5,000

• Con­sid­er­a­tion of le­gal is­sues (two hours)–$5,000

• Con­fer­ences with in­struct­ing at­tor­ney (three hours)–$7,500

• Le­gal re­search (eight hours)–$20,000

• Con­sid­er­a­tion of oth­er side's doc­u­ments (three hours)–$7,500

• Prepa­ra­tion of ev­i­dence and ar­gu­ments (eight hours)–$20,000

• Care and con­duct–$30,000

To­tal–$95,500

Lasse un­aware of the large sum paid

PTSC chair­man Vin­cent Lasse said pay­ments were done through the fi­nance and ac­counts de­part­ment. He said he was un­aware of the large sum paid to Singh and would have to check with the de­part­ment. In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view, Lasse said he does not have to be in­volved for pay­ments to be dis­bursed.

Asked if the PTSC had oth­er at­tor­neys on board apart from Singh, he said there were oth­ers. Lasse con­firmed that Ram­soon­dar was the cor­po­rate sec­re­tary at one time, but said she was made man­ag­er of le­gal ser­vices a few months ago.

Singh: I can't dis­cuss pay­ments

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Singh said he could not dis­cuss pay­ments and asked that the doc­u­ments be sent to him. When told they were in­voic­es he had sent to PTSC, he said: "I can't dis­cuss pay­ments, it is a mat­ter of priv­i­lege be­tween me and my client."

Ma­haraj: It is po­lit­i­cal mis­chief

Pay­ments at the PTSC were above board, said Ma­haraj. He said it was a mat­ter for the PTSC to an­swer and it was up to the le­gal de­part­ment to de­ter­mine whether fees were ex­or­bi­tant. "This is po­lit­i­cal mis­chief to sul­ly the char­ac­ter of Mr Singh," he said.

Ma­haraj said if the fees were too high, the PTSC would not pay, be­cause it en­sured that it was not over­charged for goods and ser­vices. He added that Singh was nev­er re­tained by the PATT, con­trary to re­ports.