It’s time the Office of the Insurance Commissioner becomes fully autonomous

Apr 19, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
First of all I must offer my prayers for the speedy recover of Ms. Maria van Beek. This cowardly act was done by the weak and even if they are never caught by men, they will be caught by God and punished.
Her work in a challenging situation to date was of a high standard. I felted comforted that she was willing to speak the truth regardless of the consequences.
It is quite easy to decipher that there are those powerful people with vested interest whom are not interested in her completing her job.

Unfortunately, many well connected people were able to pull their money out of CLICO to safety to the detriment of the other stakeholders, during the period November 2008 to January 2009 on information not available to the public. Is there a connection here?
But the focus of this letter is more on the Judicial Report. After reading the newspapers’ interpretation of that report, I ask – why are we still keeping Ms Knights on at a company that she played an integral part in destroying?

I am concerned that this individual is still being allowed to serve the people of Guyana on the Board of GuySuCo. What skill set can she bring to the turnaround process?
To just juggle the memory of those who choose not to remember, on January 30th, 2009, the then CEO of CLICO (Guyana) Ms Knight said according to the SN report of that date – “CLICO (Guyana) remains solid with a statutory fund that is in good standing”.
Now the Commissioner has stated just two months after that “it is expected that there would be insufficient funds to cover all classes of business”.

Well if there is anyone who has failed Integrity 101 it is Ms Knight. Even if her political sponsor (please note, I said sponsor since there is only one person that is keeping her in office) is not willing to remove her from office, she should do the honourable thing and resign from the GuySuCo Board.
There are people like Dr. Gopaul, Mr. Burrowes and Mr Hanoman who can easily offer that integrity and leadership to GuySuCo, so there is no need for fillers or “chair warmers” in this process. I repeat my call for Ms Knight to resign from the GuySuCo and Berbice Bridge Boards.
This fiasco with CLICO (Guyana) and the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance is stuff made for a PhD on how not to regulate and supervise the industry.
Regardless of the mess, I must confess that I am very please with Ms Van Beek’s performance in a crisis situation.

She has done a very detailed assessment of the situation, she has taken cost control measures to stabilise the cash flow and she has conceived a strategy for the future with a possible sale of the good parts of the business to local competitors.
I do not think there are many people in the world that could have done better in this situation.
The financial gap will have to be fulfilled by the Government. That is why I continue to insist that the trade unions, whose members are beneficiaries of the pension and medical plans at CLICO (Guyana), must agitate for the Government to formally sanction their responsibility in parliament and not leave this important decision to word of mouth.

The pertinent risk for the members of the trade unions is – Will David Cameron, the head of the next British Government honour all the word of mouth commitment made by Gordon Brown? I would like to offer a few suggestions going forward as follows:

1. It is time the Office of the Insurance Commissioner become fully autonomous not just in law but in spirit, like the Bank of Guyana, with its own building and with the ability to raise and spend its own funds without a political sign off.
The current shacking-up in the Privatisation Unit served its purpose during the setting up stages but the “super bowl” is now on and the situation demands that this Office be adequately resourced so that it can operate independent of vested interest, similar to the way the Bank of Guyana functions with accountability only to its Board (even though every board in the Caribbean is under threat now after the public offering of Mr. Duprey);

2. The legislative infrastructure for the financial sector must be revised like yesterday to make the entire industry more regulated, more accountable and more information sharing focused.
This includes the banks, trust companies, NBS, the insurance companies, NIS and all the other companies that manages and controls huge collection of the public’s resources.

3. We should have a Freedom of Information Act for all licensed financial institutions, insurance companies, building societies and the NIS of course so that all shareholders, depositors, policyholders etc. can rest assured that they have the power to know about the financial viability of these companies to which they are exposed.

(I have seen the effectiveness of the Freedom of Information Act in the UK and in principal I will be one of the most fervent supporters of legislation of this nature.
However, while the wider legislation is locked down in solitary confinement in parliament, we can try a sectoral version that will have minimal political implications but maximum economic impact on our nation’s financial industry).

Other than that, there is not much else to be done than actively regulate and sanction all violations surgically without delay and without fear or favour.
Globe Trust and GNCB were learning experiences for the banking sector and now CLICO (Guyana) is an experience for the insurance sector.
The Guyanese authorities were privileged enough to have first hand knowledge and experiences of adverse financial situation both in the banking and insurance sectors and thus they have no excuse to not do it right in the future. Can we do it, yes we can!
Sasenarine Singh

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