The indecent spin the President is putting on CLICO’s liquidation is Guyana’s most recent national scandal.
Having created the financial turbulence through massive misfeasance and flagrant law-breaking which in the first place caused CLICO policyholders so much trauma and loss, the President now showboats himself as the chivalrous life-guard bringing them to safety. He is now Champion of policyholders.
The Alliance For Change has long stated that CLICO’s (Guyana) transfer to CLICO (Bahamas) in 2006/7 of a sum of $6.9 B (Guy) or $34. 5 M (US) was criminality of an extraordinary magnitude.
But this transfer was only facilitated through a Presidential intervention which instructed the Commissioner of Insurance that there be a turning of a blind eye to the misdeeds of CLICO’s CEO, Ms Geeta Singh Knight, and her Board members, in permitting assets in excess of 53% to be invested overseas; and, an aiding and abetting by officials from Bank of Guyana who allowed that huge sum to leave these shores, a fact which came to be known to the Minister of Finance vey early.
All this occurred as a result of the desire of the President wanting to get the Berbice Bridge completed as his hallmark project. What did the President do? He pleaded with Mr. Lawrence Duprey to arrange funding for the Bridge’s construction. Mr. Duprey asked in return that the “idle” assets at CLICO (Guyana) be invested in Florida USA via CLICO (Bahamas) to work a hefty profit in Florida’s growing realty market. The argument was that such an investment will bring a benefit to the local policyholders and will move him, Duprey, to arrange funding for the Berbice Bridge. Indeed the Berbice Bridge was built, but the bubble on the Florida Realty Investment burst in 2009 thereby resulting in the loss of this massive amount of $34.5 M (US). The Bridge was thus built on the battered backs of CLICO’s (Guyana) policyholders. We never will know if all the $34.5 M (US) were used up in Florida or if any was pocketed and by who. The need is most urgent then for a thorough inquiry as to this financial debacle. Not only for an identification of the culprits who caused it, but also to discern the lessons to be learnt, so as to avoid a recurrence thereof.
The AFC is, however, very pessimistic that any inquiry will be held by the Jagdeo Administration. Such an inquiry will, the AFC believes, lead to the intellectual authors of the Van Beek’s shooting and attempted murder. Also, it will reveal the extent and nature of the President’s involvement in this sordid episode.
The AFC will renew its application in the Economic Services Sector Committee for an inquiry which was blocked early last year by PPP’s Gail Texeira through her interpretation of the sub judice rule in the context of winding up proceedings then before C.J. Ian Chang. Now that there is an end to those proceedings, the AFC is hoping that the PNC and conscientious PPP members of that Committee will compel the attendance of Minister Singh, Ms. Geeta Singh Knight, and Bank of Guyana officials who released the monies to Bahamas and /or Florida. Moreover, the AFC as part of such an enquiry will seek to identify those who manage to withdraw their monies as a result of insider information, and why NBS was so quick to buy out CLICO shares in the Berbice Bridge and where did this money go.
The AFC wants to make it pellucidly clear that it supports the policyholders being paid their entitlements now that the liquidation process is being carried out. It however warns that amidst all the sometimes necessary bureaucracy and cumbersome statutory procedures under insolvency laws, and the identification of priorities and proportionalities, this will not be a fast drawdown as the President is insisting.
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