Since accepting the honour of being this country's Attorney General, Anand Ramlogan's tenure has been one marked with controversy and one can easily understand why this is the case. He has inherited the unenviable task of unravelling alleged acts of serious impropriety and corruption undertaken under the defeated Patrick Manning regime. Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar must be entirely satisfied with her choice in this very important and sensitive position since he has been performing his onerous duties with a resolve which indicates he is not fazed by his detractors, who waste no time criticising him, sometimes in the most disrespectful manner, on a daily basis on the blogs.
He is however prosecuting his mandate with a zeal that is remarkable for those who know the amount of work he has been putting into his assignment. Senator Ramlogan knows the population and the Prime Minister, in particular, expect that at the end of the day he would deliver. I say all of this in light of the latest scandal to negatively impact on the last PNM regime-"Kickbacks for UTT staff," according to the headline on the last Sunday Guardian. As the exclusive Shaliza Hassanali story stated, millions of taxpayers' dollars were given to contractors and sup- pliers, some of whom were never actually awarded contracts.
Those revelations came out as a result of a probe ordered by the AG and has so far resulted in the suspension of several senior UTT staff and credit must be given to Senator Ramlogan for this shocking exposure, so well captured by Hassanali. He has stuck to his guns despite the verbal onslaught, mainly from his PNM detractors, who of course do not want him to succeed in the PP's efforts to help rid the country of the scourge of corruption in high places. In the end we all hope that T&T will be served with tighter restrictions and regulations to prevent the wholesale rape of the Treasury.
Francis Paul
St Joseph