Dear Editor,

I thank you for publishing my letter on March 26, 2009 (‘The Bank of Guyana must improve its monitoring and inspection activities…’) drawing attention to the unhealthy relationships existing among Clico, NIS, New Building Society (NBS), Hand-in-Hand Trust and the Berbice Bridge Company and their unsafe, imprudent, sometimes illegal investment actions which have already resulted in the loss of billions of other people’s money in the Stanford Ponzi scheme and Duprey’s greedy expansion plans, and placed at risk billions invested in a bridge.

This reckless chasing after a fast buck in dangerously risky investments promising astronomical yields without any proper due diligence not only presents a clear and present danger to the financial system of Guyana but has destroyed the savings, deposits, pension funds and trust funds of thousands of Guyanese, notwithstanding verbal guarantees offered.

The NIS remains in danger of collapse and could probably only be bailed out by the taxpayers of Guyana, ie the Consolidated Fund. Clico already is in a state of collapse, Hand-in-Hand Trust is “working on a reorganization plan” with the Central Bank and NBS cannot project from which revenues the depositors’ billions invested in the Berbice Bridge will be repaid.

My call to the Governor of the Bank of Guyana to take possession of Hand-in-Hand Trust has not yet provoked a response, but Mr Evelyn, CEO of Hand-in-Hand has stated in an invited response to my letter that my “analysis is very wrong” without offering any evidence of this, but promising more lectures of an academic nature on financial matters, just having presided over the loss of over a billion Guyana dollars in Stanford Ponzi scheme.

In his letter to SN dated March 18 (‘On what basis did Dr Thomas come to the conclusion that Hand-in-Hand did not do due diligence…’), Mr Evelyn questioned Dr Clive Thomas’s assertion that Hand-in-Hand failed to conduct due diligence on Stanford before committing over a billion Guyana dollars of other people’s money, dismissing in similar vein Dr Thomas. All the while Mr Evelyn fails to state precisely what Hand-in-Hand actually did by way of due diligence.

Dr Thomas has properly replied to Mr Evelyn what due diligence is all about and this should serve as a serious lesson to him, Clico, NBS and NIS to pause when considering future investments. Now that we have the Thomas lecture, we may be spared the Evelyn lectures.

Yours faithfully,
R Gaskin