23 Jun 2026

The government is considering a major crackdown on public officers whose negligence embroils the state in costly and avoidable litigation.

Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday, Attorney General, Mr Dick Bayford said plans were underway to surcharge accounting officers whose decisions resulted in massive losses of state funds through court costs.

Mr Bayford said certain ministries routinely alerted or engage the Attorney General’s Chambers too late, causing critical cases to be dismissed due to missed legal deadlines.

“Some engage us very late, sometimes we are given only seven days to file, and when we ask for more information, it takes time, causing the court-mandated deadlines to lapse,” he said.

The Attorney General, Mr Bayford said represented the entire government ecosystem, explaining that payments for damages or costs were centralised at the office.

If the Ministry of Health finds itself-embroiled in a lot of medical malpractice cases, it will then be expected that the AG’s, through a vote apportioned to it, be able to pay for the damages emanating from the health ministry, Mr Bayford said.

The Attorney General, he said had raised concern about the arrangement, since it tended to compromise accountability with Ministries, Departments and Agencies, since it was not their vote that was being spent.

Despite these procedural hurdles, Mr Bayford assured the committee that interventions were being implemented to mitigate these incidents, noting that the state’s current litigation success rate stood at 71 per cent.

The Attorney General also told the PAC about the concerns over outsourced legal services, explaining that the government outsourced 25 civil litigation cases between 2021 and 2026, that cost the government a total of P11.1 million.

A significant concentration of the funds, he said was discovered within a single firm.

Mr Bayford said of the 25 cases, one lawyer was allocated four of those cases, pocketing P6.5 million of the total budget.

He confirmed that corrective action had been taken and an instruction issued to withdraw all active cases from the lawyer in question and reassign them to other firms.

“We also observed that there was no proper monitoring of these outsourced cases, but stricter oversight mechanisms will be enforced moving forward,” he said.

He however said for the period under review, the Attorney General Chambers had received 236 requests for advice from ministries, department and agencies.

Mr Bayford said the office was able to render 219 of requested advice within the set target period of 10 days while 17 were outside the target. ENDS