(Trinidad Guardian) The Trinidad and Tobago Government is being asked to pay up US$60 million owed on Clico liability or risk possibly being sued by Caricom counterpart Antigua.
Antigua Prime Minister Gaston Browne yesterday called on T&T to pay up the sum as he noted a third letter on the issue will soon be sent to the T&T Government.
However, if T&T continues to treat the matter with contempt “then we’ll have no choice but to sue them,” Browne said.
He noted that T&T’s Govern-ment has been written to on the issue before and did not get a proper response.
Browne spoke about the matter on Antigua’s Pointe FM’s “Browne and Browne” radio show on Saturday and the story began circulating on social media yesterday.
Browne has been chairman of the sub-committee on insurance within the Caricom union since about a year ago. He said significant progress was made on the Clico-British American In-surance company (Baico) issue.
Barbados’ government agreed to pay US$37m for the assets of Clico International in Barbados. For Baico, some $9.3 million will come from St Kitts for the Nevis Island administration bond and $8.2m will be collected from St Lucia’s pledged assets.
The sale of real estate assets to the various territories was agreed and it was even suggested the governments could buy them if they need them, he added.
Browne said litigation is also being pursued against Clico founder Lawrence Duprey and company and “possibly, we may eventually have to sue the Government of T&T because as you know, they had agreed to provide a settlement of US$100 million and they paid about close to US$40 million and the balance of US$60 million remains unpaid.”
“We have written to the Government of T&T and they have not even treated us with the type of respect that is typical among countries and colleagues,” Browne said.
“So, we’ll be writing to them again, it’s probably gonna be the third time and we hope that now their fortunes have improved, that they are benefitting from the increase in the escalation of fuel prices, that they’ll put some system in place to cover the rest of the liability. If they continue to treat us with contempt, then we’ll have no choice but to sue them.”
The T&T Government undertook a bailout of Clico after it collapsed in 2009 and it still working to recover that debt owed to it, estimated last year at $1.2 billion, via various arrangements, including the sale of Clico assets.
T&T Government officials were tight-lipped on the matter yesterday.