At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie has raised con­cerns over how the ad­di­tion­al $89 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to his min­istry in the Mid-year Bud­get Re­view will be spent, re­veal­ing that a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion will go to­wards set­tling debts ac­crued un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day’s de­bate in Par­lia­ment, Je­re­mie said the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs (AGLA) in­her­it­ed sub­stan­tial ar­rears, in­clud­ing le­gal fees and rental costs linked to in­di­vid­u­als al­leged­ly close to the Op­po­si­tion.

Sev­en weeks in­to of­fice, Je­re­mie said he un­cov­ered a pat­tern where large pay­ments were made to peo­ple who “played golf with a for­mer prime min­is­ter”—a veiled ref­er­ence to ties be­tween le­gal ser­vice providers and high-rank­ing of­fi­cials in the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment.

“Dur­ing this fis­cal year, all golf play­ers were paid in full. If you were on the golf team you col­lect­ed every­thing. Half of my col­leagues need to know that in or­der to be well treat­ed, you now have to study law and study golf,” Je­re­mie said.

He ac­cused the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion of sad­dling tax­pay­ers with ap­prox­i­mate­ly $150 mil­lion in out­stand­ing bills—funds he said could have in­stead gone to hos­pi­tals, schools, or es­sen­tial med­i­cine.

“If you were not play­ing golf and sub­mit­ted in­voic­es, some of which I re­ceived be­tween Mon­day and last night, it amounts to $150 mil­lion,” he said.

“What­ev­er the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance has giv­en me to pay fees, I want you to know, so you can tell your friends, and your for­mer prime min­is­ter’s friends, that I will not be pay­ing a sin­gle cent. I will be pay­ing for work for val­ue re­ceived.”

Be­yond the fi­nan­cial con­cerns, Je­re­mie an­nounced plans to in­ves­ti­gate ac­tions by for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­ans in the lead-up to the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. He said in­struc­tions were giv­en in some mat­ters just one week be­fore the polls—di­rec­tives he de­scribed as des­per­ate at­tempts to dam­age po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents, in­clud­ing him­self, San Fer­nan­do West MP Michael Dowlath, and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“When crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing is al­leged, I do not mind you look­ing at me, I am hap­py. But when you look at the po­lit­i­cal leader and Prime Min­is­ter of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, a grand­moth­er who has served this coun­try for how­ev­er long, nev­er had one stan­dard raised against her, I will go to war with you.”

As Je­re­mie gave that warn­ing, he point­ed to three op­po­si­tion mem­bers, adding the mat­ter would be in­ves­ti­gat­ed with every “fi­bre of my be­ing.”

“These acts amount to an abuse of of­fice,” Je­re­mie said, adding that le­gal ad­vice ob­tained from an Eng­lish king’s coun­sel sug­gests those who is­sued the in­struc­tions may have mis­be­haved in pub­lic of­fice.

He added, “What that is, is us­ing the re­sources of the State. I want to talk to the peo­ple in Ca­roni and Bel­mont—the re­sources of the State are monies we should be spend­ing in this Par­lia­ment to pro­vide health­care for them and make their lives bet­ter.”

Turn­ing to the on­go­ing CLI­CO mat­ter, Je­re­mie re­vealed that ser­vice providers De­loitte & Touche had not been paid for two years. He said he met with the firm and a king’s coun­sel lawyer, both of whom could not pro­vide a de­fin­i­tive cost for com­plet­ing the mat­ter, though De­loitte and Touche claimed over $300 mil­lion in un­paid fees.

“What they were ask­ing me to do is com­mit an un­known amount of mon­ey for an un­known num­ber of knowns, for an un­known pos­si­ble re­sult,” he said.

Je­re­mie, who ini­ti­at­ed the CLI­CO re­cov­ery process in 2003, said the mat­ter has dragged on for over two decades. Over the years, the State has spent near­ly $1 bil­lion on the is­sue.

“I start­ed it. I am go­ing to re­turn to this House on this mat­ter,” Je­re­mie said.

“Af­ter 20 years, with the re­cov­ery hav­ing tak­en place large­ly in my time, I do not know whether this is val­ue for mon­ey, es­pe­cial­ly at a time when we face se­ri­ous fis­cal con­straints. I will look at it, see where we are, and take a re­spon­si­ble de­ci­sion.”