Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A so­cial me­dia ac­tivist has asked for dis­clo­sure of in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to a British law firm re­tained by the Gov­ern­ment to as­sist T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) probes in­to al­leged cor­rup­tion.

Lawyers for Vishal Per­sad, who runs the blog Mil­len­ni­als for Change, made the re­quest un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) in a let­ter sent to act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin on Tues­day.

Stat­ing that his client is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a project en­ti­tled The State Po­lice, at­tor­ney Keron Ramkhal­whan said Per­sad is con­cerned about re­ports that Kate McMa­hon and her law firm Ed­monds Mar­shall McMa­hon were con­tract­ed and fund­ed by the Gov­ern­ment.

Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed ex­clu­sive­ly that sev­er­al probes be­ing done by the firm have been shelved due to de­lays by the TTPS in re­spond­ing to its re­quest for the ex­e­cu­tion of war­rants. The firm had al­leged­ly re­ceived $50 mil­lion in pay­ments for the work it had done.

The probes were re­lat­ed to the State-owned Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (EM­BD) and the Min­istry of Sports’ Life­S­port pro­gramme.

Ramkhal­whan not­ed that when they were re­tained dur­ing the tenure of for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, he raised con­cerns about the arrange­ment.

“Our client is of the firm view and is al­so ad­vised by his at­tor­neys-at-law that po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions must re­main in­su­lat­ed and in­de­pen­dent of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence and dis­cre­tion, and there­fore, the re­cent me­dia re­port that the Gov­ern­ment has con­tract­ed these pri­vate in­ves­ti­ga­tors, made them po­lice of­fi­cers, and tasked them to in­ves­ti­gate promi­nent po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents is ex­treme­ly dis­con­cert­ing,” Ramkhal­whan said.

He said his client al­so ques­tioned whether the probes yield tan­gi­ble out­comes.

“Pub­lic mon­ey is meant to serve the pub­lic in­ter­est not to be di­vert­ed for po­lit­i­cal pos­tur­ing, de­flec­tion, and scape­goat­ing,” he said.

“The fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple here is that the pub­lic purse is not in­tend­ed for use as a mech­a­nism for po­lit­i­cal lever­age, nor should it be squan­dered due to bu­reau­crat­ic in­er­tia, in­ef­fi­cien­cy, or in­ter­fer­ence.”

He al­so sug­gest­ed that it has the po­ten­tial to un­der­mine the coun­try’s democ­ra­cy.

“For a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety to func­tion prop­er­ly, the prin­ci­ple of po­lit­i­cal neu­tral­i­ty in law en­force­ment is para­mount. Any de­vi­a­tion from this un­der­mines the very foun­da­tion of jus­tice and democ­ra­cy,” he said.

Ramkhal­whan re­quest­ed the dis­clo­sure of the con­tract doc­u­ments be­tween the firm and any arm of the State, in­clud­ing the TTPS. He al­so re­quest­ed the fees the firm was paid.

Ben­jamin was giv­en 30 days to re­spond to the re­quest be­fore Per­sad files a law­suit.

Per­sad is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Kiel Tak­lals­ingh, and An­war Ho­sein.