Public Utilities Minister Barry Padarath has defended the legal expenditure of two State companies, saying these figures were allowed to balloon by the former administration.He added that the Government was now forced to continue these legal proceedings.Padarath was yesterday respon­ding to questions from the Express concerning the payment of over $75 million in legal fees to attorneys by the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) and the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) between 2015 and 2026.The information was disclosed following the filing of four Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests submitted by attorney Keron Ramkhalwhan for his clients, Umar Abdullah and Vishal Persad.While WASA has disclosed the names, matters, date of invoices, and the quantum paid to each attorney over this period, T&TEC has redacted the names of attorneys, providing the amount and years paid to attorneys over the period.The statements revealed that WASA paid $41,675,327.79 to attorneys for the specified period, while T&TEC paid $33,663,183.61.When Padarath was contacted on Tuesday, he said enquiries would be made into the matter.In a voice recording sent to the Express yesterday, the minister said with the Government in office since April 28, 2025, the former minister of public utilities should be asked why the legal expenditure by the State companies was allowed to balloon.“A significant amount of expen­diture in legal fees across the utility sector came from matters that came about under the former administration, whether they are industrial relations matters, whether they are civil matters.“Therefore, the lack of oversight, the allowance of waste mismanagement and corruption to balloon in legal fees is really a testimony of the lack of oversight, the lack of proper accountability and also the lack of management of State enterprises under the Ministry of Public Utilities,” he continued.He said this Government had “inherited a situation” where they were forced to continue with legal action.“They have outsourced these attorneys. You either don’t have the history or the competency in these State companies,” he added.Padarath pointed to the names disclosed in the statement from WASA, which he said were “in one way or the other aligned with the People’s National Movement”.“You heard from time to time former leader of the opposition, now Prime Minister Kamla Persad-­Bissessar, speak about the ‘eat-ah-food’ lawyers and these ‘eat-ah-food’ lawyers who were feeding at the troughs of the State through these public utility companies,” he added.Some of the listed attorneys, he continued, included sitting Members of Parliament on the Opposition bench, personal attorneys of former ministers; and President Christine Kangaloo’s husband, Kerwyn Garcia, SC.“All of these persons have been attached to a number of these matters that were allowed to balloon between 2015 to 2025, when they demitted office. So, the list of lawyers is quite interesting and you see the correlation when you connect the dots there,” he said.The minister added that under his direction, the Government was actively addressing the issue to see how many matters could be pursued in-house. “We are getting competent lawyers working inside of the company, but this was a situation that was allowed to balloon for one reason or the other,” he said.