– T&T Finance Minister

The Government of Trinidad and Tobago is prepared to go to some lengths to ensure the justice is served in the matter of the spectacular collapse of CL Financial, which has sent shock waves through the region and left thousands of investors and policyholders guessing as to when, perhaps even whether they will at least be able to retrieve their investments from the ill-fated group.

Last week, Trinidad and Tobago’s Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira disclosed that prosecutions can be anticipated against those persons responsible for the disappearance of billions of dollars from Colonial Life Insurance Company (Trinidad) if a forensic investigation currently taking place turns up evidence that can stand up in court.

This newspaper has seen a Jamaica Gleaner report by Business writer Linda-Jay Hutchinson which discloses that Trinidad and Tobago’s Central Bank has recruited the services of a Canadian forensic investigator Robert Lindquist to probe the operations of CL Financial, which, up to the time of its inglorious collapse was the largest private business conglomerate in the region.

The Gleaner article indicates that Trinidad and Tobago is appealing for patience for a likely impatient local population, pointing out that the task of unravelling the CL Financial saga is complex. “But clearly, at the end of the day, when the investigation is completed, that you can feel comfortable, that you can, if you have to, prosecute a case – if that’s what is called for – you have a strong case and a case that can stand up in a court of law.”

Here in Guyana no such direct official threats of prosecution have been uttered. However, President Bharrat Jagdeo has given investors and policyholders his personal word that monies invested with Clico will be recovered. Restitution however must await the legal settlement of the liquidation issue and some weeks ago the directorate of the Guyana Manufacturers and Services Association (GMSA) issued a statement calling for the speeding up of the liquidation process.

The grounds posited by the GMSA for its call were that the ordinary Clico investors with pension schemes at stake should not be made to wait any longer to retrieve their monies. However, the situation here seems likely to drag on for a good deal longer following a move to the courts by local interested parties to block the liquidation of Clico.

And unlike in Port-of-Spain where CL Financial functionaries will doubtless be concerned about the outcome of the enquiry no such concerns exist in the minds of local Clico officials – at least not for the moment.

Last June the Government of Trinidad and Tobago signed an agreement with CL Financial shareholders and directors under which the company was placed under the control of a new Board of Directors. An earlier Memorandum of Understanding between the Port-of-Spain government and CL provides a package of official support to which a number of conditions are attached. These include the nationalization of the assets and liabilities of Clico and the British American Insurance Company. (BAICO) Under the MOU, CL Financial is also required to dispose of its 55 per cent shareholding in Republic Bank Ltd.