AG flags millions in legal fees to PNM ‘golf partners’; warns party: I will go to war with you

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.