The Auditor General conducted a special audit of the fees paid by the Ministry of Legal Affairs for legal services during the period May 2015 to August 2020. He found 71 contracts worth $ 170.828 million awarded to 26 Attorney-at-Law law and the law. companies using the sole procurement method, instead of using competitive bidding procedures, as provided for by the Procurement Act.
In today’s article we discuss the Auditor General’s report on the issue.
Request for special examination
By letter dated 24 August 2020, the Attorney General wrote to the Auditor General requesting a special examination of the fees paid for legal services by the Ministry of Legal Affairs under the previous Administration. Two days earlier in a virtual media briefing, the Attorney General had revealed that the previous Ministry had spent hundreds of millions of dollars in private detention contracts and that a forensic examination would have to be undertaken to determine whether these payments were properly made. He cited several cases where the Ministry entered into contracts for the provision of legal services in respect of a number of high profile political cases.