(Trinidad Express) CLICO Investment Bank (CIB), a subsidiary of CL Financial, was on Friday described as a “bran tub” and a “cancer” by one of its founders, ambassador Mervyn Assam.
Assam, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary with responsibility for trade and investment, was one of CIB’s founders in 1990.
He resigned from CIB in 1995 after a tiff with CL Financial executive chairman Lawrence Duprey over the dismissal of an employee named Mala Gandhi and also because Basdeo Panday requested that he contest the general election on the United National Congress (UNC) slate.
Assam returned as the executive chairman of CIB in 2008 following the resignation of Andre Monteil from the post.
Assam originally began his testimony at the enquiry last week Friday but returned the day before yesterday for his cross-examination to be completed.
During cross-examination by Stuart Young, legal representative for Ernst and Young, Assam described CIB as a “bran tub” in relation to its granting of loan facilities.
“I described what happened at CIB, I do not know if you know about it, I called it a bran tub, you know Catholic churches have a bazaar annually and they have a bran tub and you go and you put your hand into the bran tub and you pick up and you go.
That is how loans were dispersed, like that and that was the end of it, it was a bran tub situation,” Assam said.
Assam said Monteil, through his company Stone Street Capital, was granted a loan for $78 million on February 14, 2007.
