The People’s Progressive Party on Monday blasted the government’s decision to appoint Dr Clive Thomas as Chairman of the Guyana Sugar Corporation citing his tenure at the Globe Trust and Investment Company Limited which eventually had to be liquidated leaving many depositors with just a fraction of their savings.
During its weekly press briefing held at Freedom House the PPP launched a scathing attack on Thomas’ suitability to be the head of GuySuCo. The PPP said he was Chairman of the Globe Trust Board when the company went bankrupt.
However, Stabroek News reports show that Thomas had been substantively a director of Globe Trust and had been acting as Chairman when the Bank of Guyana moved to take control of the troubled institution.
With a “non-stellar performance as Chairman of the Board of Globe Trust one does not have to wonder too much about the future of the sugar industry with Clive Thomas as Chairman of GuySuCo,” General Secretary of the opposition party, Clement Rohee told members of the media.
Without providing names Rohee stated that at the time of Globe Trust’s collapse in 2001 directors on the board owed in excess of $100M to Globe Trust.
While Rohee launched into an attack on Thomas’ abilities to perform he rejected a comparison to the decision by the PPP to appoint Geeta Singh-Knight to the GuySuCo board as a director. Singh-Knight was the Chief Executive Officer at the time the Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO) here collapsed leaving depositors and policyholders in disarray.
When Rohee was questioned about Singh-Knight’s appointment he noted that she was not appointed as the Chairman of GuySuCo and to compare the two was to mix “apples with oranges.”
The PPP had additionally appointed Dr Rajendra Singh as the Chairman of the GuySuCo board when he had no experience for such a position. He was later appointed the CEO of the sugar company while the board was left to expire until Shaik Baksh was appointed as Chairman in August of last year under the former administration.
The PPP noted that on July 25, 2002, then Chief Justice Carl Singh issued an Order for the reorganisation of Globe Trust and noted that the judgment said: “The Directors of Globe Trust must be criticised for allowing this sorry episode in the institution’s history by its failure to act decisively in the face of lax, loose and grossly incompetent management.”
What the PPP did not say was that the judge had also found that the Bank of Guyana (BoG) – during the PPP’s tenure in office – had “remained largely inactive in the face of the infringements of the Financial Institutions Act unearthed by its inspections” of Globe Trust.
The judge had also found that the BoG had acted unfairly towards Globe Trust. He had noted that the BoG’s decision to take possession of Globe Trust had come two days after the BoG had given Thomas one working to furnish a host of information.
Thomas and others had intervened in the case before Justice Singh seeking to have an order for the reorganisation of Globe Trust and this is what the Judge eventually ordered. Globe Trust eventually went into liquidation after difficulties in finding investors.
The PPP said that Thomas should reflect on his experience at Globe Trust to ensure he does not repeat the Globe Trust debacle at the Ministry of the Presidency and GuySuCo.
