The following is reproduced from David Walker’s website. For whatever reason Newsday in T&T did not publish and to boot discontinued Walker’s column – BU.
I am grateful to the Chief Justice for recently informing us of the quantum of fees paid to our top attorneys. Much has been made of the large amounts expended on these folks by the government. I can now make sense of the total sums involved given the hourly rates of 2,000 TT$ and more.
I took it for granted that these top attorneys have been retained for the most critical cases, cases where important matters of jurisprudence were being resolved or where heinous crimes had been alleged. So it was when I read a document relating to a case soon to be heard in our courts.
The government must be up against some major criminal element, I thought to myself when I recognized the names of their lawyers as being among those considered the brightest and best the nation had to offer. Was it a major drug dealer? Had they discovered who brought in the container load of chickens stuffed with illicit drugs? Had they found Dana Seetahal’s murderer? Had they finally decided to prosecute one of the folks behind suspicious transactions being monitored by the FIU? Or had the Securities and Exchange Commission found its teeth?
Relevant Link:
The answer to the above, and all the rest of my fanciful list of criminal elements was a resounding NO. The government was rolling out the best attorneys it could find at great expense to you and I against that known deviant, Afra Raymond. You see my friends, Afra Raymond had the temerity to ask for the audited accounts of CL Financial. Yes, his alleged crime was to ask for information about the company on which we have been told a massive 20 billion dollars, and counting, of our money has been lavished.
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