Ramadhar: AG acted like a zaboca thief

ST Augustine MP Prakash Ramadhar likened Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi to a neighbourhood zaboca thief who hops your wall just before you can harvest the fruits of your labour.

Ramadhar was giving his budget contribution on Friday in the House of Representatives.

“Sometimes you plant a seed. You have to nurture it, put it in the right ground, water it, ensure it gets proper sunlight; and the plant slowly grows, ultimately to a point where it may start to bear fruit.

“Sometimes the fruit may be yet green – but you know the thing in this country with your zaboca? You think it’s a little too green but the fellow who is ready to come and pick it doesn’t find so.

“I would not accuse my learned friend from San Fernando West of being a praedial larcenist. I will not do that, but to say that the millions of records he was able to transfer from one building to the other – we had prepared them.”

Ramadhar, a former minister of legal affairs, was referring to documents moved from the old Ministry of Legal Affairs (MLA) building at South Quay to the new combined Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs at Government Campus Plaza, both in Port of Spain.

He recalled how badly documents were stored before the advent of the former People’s Partnership Government.

“When we walked into the registry, I told you of that rotting smell we got. You know what it was? The smell of deeds rotting, literally, in the vault.

“There were may older documents that we dare not touch – as you touch them they fell apart.”

He recalled early on deciding to secure those old documents, which might be the only ones showing ownership of a property.

“It was not a simple thing, not a matter of photocopying it. Specialised equipment to preserve the old and rotting paper needed to be acquired.”

Ramadhar said Al-Rawi knew the MLA had needed foreign help to do so.

“So it is not as though by the snap of his finger it happened. But I would understand why he would want you believe that.”

Otherwise Ramadhar repeatedly referred to Al-Rawi as an honourable man, based on his own experience of working with him.