Lutchman Sooknandan started working as DPP in January of 2007 and tonight 16 months later the news is that he’s leaving the job. But he’s not been fired. Sooknandan confirmed to us that the Prime Minister’s office gave him a fair deal, and he’s leaving without acrimony and on terms with which he is satisfied. That tells us that he was likely satisfactorily paid off for his contract, one of the largest on the public payroll - which had two years left on it.
But we do know that Attorney General Wilfred Elrington has publicly criticised Sooknandan and told us that he had someone else in mind for the job. It is believed that Elrington’s professional dislike for Sooknandan’s management style made his departure inevitable.
And while he has been criticized, there’s no gainsaying that Sooknandan inherited the office in a shambles: there was a famous backlog of almost 500 cases, the relationship with the police had all but collapsed and public confidence in the office was low. Sooknandan brought up that public confidence, dealt with the backlog and increased the conviction rate. But that doesn’t mean he’s irreplaceable. And we are told that Deputy DPP Cheryl Lynn Branker Taitt has been given the nod. We were however, unable to confirm that today.
