By SANCHESKA DORSETT

Tribune Staff Reporter

sdorsett@tribunemedia.net

ATTORNEY General Carl Bethel said yesterday he was "surprised" to learn there were concerns in his office regarding salary increases and back pay when no one "including the prosecutor who raised the matter with the prime minister," has "never once" mentioned any problems to him.

In an interview with The Tribune, Mr Bethel, who is currently out of the country, said he will "deal with the matter as soon as he gets back."

According to a letter obtained by The Tribune, a prosecutor said lawyers in the Office of the Attorney General haven't received increments and salary increases in accordance with the industrial agreement the government signed with the Bahamas Public Service Union in 2013.

In a letter dated September 5 and sent to Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis, a prosecutor described the complaint as needing "urgent" attention.

"I feel a sense of duty to bring to your attention an urgent matter concerning discriminatory practice of the Office of the Attorney General in denying lawyers, over these many years, and who are duly employed in the civil service, benefits and salary increases that have been brokered and obtained by the Public Service Union on behalf of all civil servants in the Bahamas, including ourselves, that has been practised from my knowledge and belief from time immemorial," the prosecutor wrote. "This unjust practice ought to cease under your administration, in my humble opinion."

Mr Bethel said he knew nothing of the complaint and was "disturbed" that the author of the letter would write to the prime minister before bringing the concerns to him.

"I am surprised and disturbed when I read the letter and when I saw the article in the paper allegedly sent by an attorney in the Office of the Attorney General to the prime minister," Mr Bethel said.

"Especially since no one, including the writer, raised that issue with me and I have spoken to that person personally on a number of occasions and it has never been raised with me.

"I am puzzled that a matter of such seriousness will be raised in this manner.

"However, it will be dealt with as soon as I get back in town. It is certainly an irregular situation and I knew nothing about it."

In the letter, the prosecutor said prosecutors in the criminal department and civil litigators in the civil department of the Office of the Attorney General have had overdue increments and salary increases since 2014.

"Any lawyer in our office that has been duly employed as a 'permanent and pensionable civil servant' prior to and including 2013 is entitled, according to the law stated in the attachments, to our overdue increments and salary increases," the prosecutor wrote.

"I believe that many senior persons in the public service are either blissfully unaware or intentionally malicious in denying the lawyers in the Office of the Attorney General our due and just entitlements under the said industrial agreement referred herein.

"Without us, the prosecutors in the Office of the Attorney General, no court, including ten Supreme Courts or the Court of Appeal, can function because the courts need a prosecutor to either present the evidence in these murder, rape, armed robbery, unlawful sexual intercourse, fraud or forgery cases, inter alia, or to answer the Court of Appeal, on behalf of the government of the Bahamas in any contentious litigation matter."

The prosecutor said the issues in the letter to Dr Minnis have been raised with Director of Public Prosecutions Garvin Gaskin and the accounts department of the Office of the Attorney General.