(Trinidad Express) On one hand members of the Hindu Credit Union (HCU) were unable to retrieve their funds and on the other, the board of directors was approving “very big expenditures”.
This “dichotomy” was revealed as Queen’s Counsel Edwin Glasgow yesterday cross-examined former secretary to the HCU board, Gainlal Ramnath, at the Commission of Enquiry into the collapse of CL Financial and the HCU at the Winsure Building in Port of Spain.
The enquiry heard yesterday that on October 28, 2004 the HCU board of directors approved the expenditure of TT$375,000 for the “refurbishment of a pool and the establishment of a gym” at one of its facilities.
During that meeting the board also approved loans totalling TT$26.3 million to several of their “unlawful” subsidiaries.
Nineteen days later, on November 16, 2004, the HCU sent a letter to the Commissioner for Co-operative Development explaining why TT$750,000 worth of cheques written to their members had bounced.
One week after the letter to the Commissioner outlining the reasons behind the number of bounced cheques being issued to members, the HCU purchased a house from the brother of president Harry Harnarine at a cost of US$100,000.
And while cheques provided to members were bouncing, the HCU arranged with Scotiabank Trinidad and Tobago Ltd to provide “millions of dollars of cash at a time”.