(Trinidad Express) Former CL Financial chairman Lawrence Duprey was a visionary whose downfall was that he had “incompetent” managers working under him.
This claim was made on Monday by Rajiv Persad, one of the attorneys representing Duprey in the Commission of Enquiry into the collapse of CL Financial and the Hindu Credit Union as he cross-examined Michael Carballo, former group financial director of CL Financial at the enquiry held at the Winsure Building, Richmond Street, Port of Spain.
Duprey was a “big picture man” who was “willing to give up an accounting loss in favour of building and developing an international brand”, Persad said.
“Yes, he was willing to forego accounting losses for the benefit of the long term,” Carballo said.
“At the end of the day CL Financial did not really have the depth of management to ensure that after the acquisitions were made to put managers in place to work at the various entities,” Carballo said.
For six straight years CL Financial and Duprey called for subsidiaries to file their financial statements on time, Persad said.
In response to this, Carballo said, “corporate governance was spoken but not implemented”.
He said this lack of implementation was based on a “lack of will and motivation on behalf of the managers”.
