President Bharrat Jagdeo has handed over documents to Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, as proof of Clico Guyana’s $6.9 billion (US$34 million) investment in Clico Bahamas.
According to a report in the Nassau Guardian, the Bahamian Prime Minister told reporters on Monday, that he had had a face-to-face talk with Jagdeo at the Caricom Heads of Government meeting held last week in Belize.
Ingraham told reporters that he had “told President Jagdeo that he ought to make available to me all of the information that they had to substantiate their claim. He caused that to be delivered to me in Belize City.”
The Bahamian Prime Minister said that his office subsequently made those documents available to the Registrar of Insurance Lennox Mc Cartney and the liquidator of Clico (Bahamas) Craig Gomez. Ingraham said that he was expecting to hear from these officials regarding the legitimacy of the information.
He said once it was confirmed, he has told the officials to inform the Guyanese President, who will then not have an interest in following through with the legal action which was being contemplated. Clico Guyana has hired attorneys in Bahamas to push its case.
Ingraham had announced in Parliament on March 2, that at that time, there appeared to be no record of Clico Guyana’s investment in Clico (Bahamas).
Following this announcement, documentation of the local insurance company’s transactions with Clico (Bahamas) had been sent to the Bahamian liquidator.
Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh on March 6 told this newspaper that “Clico Guyana, through its Judicial Manager, has communicated through representatives in the Bahamas with the Liquidator and has registered Clico Guyana’s claim and shared with him critical evidence of the company’s documentation of transactions.” Judicial Manager of Clico Guyana Maria van Beek confirmed this at her press conference last Thursday.
Clico Guyana’s investment represents 53 percent of the local companies’ assets. Although these investments were liquid on paper, investigations have revealed that this sum has been tied up in real estate investments that Clico Bahamas had in Florida through subsidiaries.