At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan says the mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar prop­er­ties he has bought have been bought hon­est­ly. Ram­lo­gan said the dates on the deeds "are mis­lead­ing and monies paid were not in a lump sum." He said he had made small in­stal­ments as con­struc­tion pro­gressed.

"The fi­nal pay­ments which are due are less than ten per cent and that hap­pened to be due for pay­ment two months af­ter the elec­tion, but I was await­ing the com­ple­tion cer­tifi­cate. By then 90 per cent was al­ready paid for," he said. Ram­lo­gan was re­spond­ing to ques­tions put to him by the T&T Guardian about prop­er­ties he has ac­quired since his ap­point­ment as AG in May 2010.

One of the prop­er­ties was pur­chased through a com­pa­ny called Ce­les­tial In­vest­ments Ltd, which is reg­is­tered un­der the names of Ram­lo­gan and his wife Nali­ni. The com­pa­ny was in­cor­po­rat­ed in 2003, and has its reg­is­tered of­fice at 18 Irv­ing Street, San Fer­nan­do. An­oth­er com­pa­ny, Triner­jex In­ter­na­tion­al Ltd, which was in­cor­po­rat­ed in 2002, al­so list­ed Ram­lo­gan as a di­rec­tor. How­ev­er, Ram­lo­gan said he had re­signed from that com­pa­ny "a while now."

As AG, Ram­lo­gan's salary is in the range of $33,000 a month plus al­lowances. In­ves­ti­ga­tions by the T&T Guardian re­vealed that Ce­les­tial pur­chased a $1.75 mil­lion con­do­mini­um in Mar­aval on No­vem­ber 25, 2010, while on Sep­tem­ber 29, 2011, Ram­lo­gan en­tered in­to an agree­ment with a de­vel­op­ment com­pa­ny and bought an apart­ment at La Rive, Mar­aval for $3,300,000. An­oth­er trans­ac­tion took place on De­cem­ber 29, 2010, be­tween Ram­lo­gan and a Val­sayn cou­ple.

The AG ex­changed a com­mer­cial prop­er­ty at 11 Irv­ing Street, San Fer­nan­do, for an apart­ment at the La For­t­aine build­ing at Colum­bus Cir­cle, West­moor­ings. For these prop­er­ties, as well as oth­ers he has bought, T&T Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that for each prop­er­ty, the deeds were pre­pared by dif­fer­ent at­tor­neys. Com­ment­ing on his pur­chas­es, Ram­lo­gan said mon­ey earned from his le­gal prac­tice is in­vest­ed in prop­er­ty.

"Le­gal fees for work done pri­or to my as­sum­ing of­fice are in­vest­ed," he said, adding that his oth­er prop­er­ties were al­so pur­chased be­fore he as­sumed of­fice. "The prop­er­ty bought in the Greens (Mar­aval), I bought with my own mon­ey." Ex­plain­ing that he had a suc­cess­ful pri­vate prac­tice be­fore he en­tered gov­ern­ment, Ram­lo­gan said he has been us­ing funds pre­vi­ous­ly ac­cu­mu­lat­ed from his per­son­al in­come.

"I ran an ex­treme­ly suc­cess­ful law firm pri­or to en­ter­ing of­fice and I left hun­dreds of mat­ters that were un­fin­ished, where fees were out­stand­ing," the AG said. "There are mat­ters which I won and the bills are still await­ing tax­a­tion." The AG ex­plained that the State owed him sig­nif­i­cant sums for cas­es which he had won, adding, "It is com­mon knowl­edge that cheques take a very long time to process in the State."

Not­ing that in some mat­ters which he com­plet­ed, judg­ments were re­served, that is, the courts are still to de­liv­er judg­ments in those cas­es. Ram­lo­gan said if he were suc­cess­ful in those mat­ters, then he is en­ti­tled to le­gal fees. "In the last six months, I won mat­ters against the State at the Privy Coun­cil, and I am still to be paid in the Trin­i­ty Cross mat­ter," Ram­lo­gan said.

Mon­ey-in-bag min­is­ter?

Asked about com­ments made last week by then Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney about there be­ing a "mon­ey-in-bag min­is­ter" who takes five and ten per cent kick­backs in le­gal fees, and whether Vol­ney was re­fer­ring to him, Ram­lo­gan said Vol­ney clar­i­fied his state­ments on a ra­dio pro­gramme, say­ing the com­ments were tak­en out of con­text. How­ev­er, the AG said he was not the min­is­ter in ques­tion.

The T&T Guardian told the AG that in­for­ma­tion re­ceived al­leged he was en­list­ing the ser­vices of an­oth­er at­tor­ney (name called) to pur­chase mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar prop­er­ties on the AG's be­half in the Port-of-Spain area. Ram­lo­gan dis­missed the al­le­ga­tions, say­ing: "No, I haven't and will not. "That is a ma­li­cious and false ac­cu­sa­tion that I would find amus­ing were it not for the dam­age it caus­es to one's char­ac­ter."

Asked to com­ment on the view that he ought to have been fired from the Cab­i­net as well, since he has a say in le­gal draft­ing, Ram­lo­gan said he did not wish to com­ment. "The Prime Min­is­ter was very com­pre­hen­sive and I have no fur­ther com­ments on that mat­ter," he said.