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Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein has slammed the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), al­leg­ing that more than $1 bil­lion in le­gal fees in the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice was fun­nelled to friends, fi­nanciers and po­lit­i­cal al­lies of for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s par­ty over their near­ly 10 years in of­fice.

His ex­plo­sive claims came as he de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s $3.14 bil­lion mid-year bud­get ad­just­ment dur­ing yes­ter­day’s par­lia­men­tary de­bate to adopt the re­port of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee.

Ho­sein dropped a po­lit­i­cal bomb­shell dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, nam­ing high-pro­file le­gal fig­ures—in­clud­ing two for­mer PNM at­tor­neys gen­er­al, two sit­ting in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, an op­po­si­tion MP, and a per­son­al as­so­ciate of Row­ley—as be­ing among 44 at­tor­neys who col­lec­tive­ly re­ceived mil­lions in state briefs.