Opposition dissatisfied with role of parliamentary committee

Apr 19, 2009 News

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CLICO debacle

By Gary Eleazar

Chairman off the Alliance For Change Khemraj Ramjattan said yesterday that the opposition (AFC) was not satisfied with the role of the Economic Services Committee as it relates to the monitoring of the developments of Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO) Guyana and stormed out off its last session.
In an invited comment, the AFC chairman explained that the Committee had agreed to invite Commissioner of Insurance/Judicial Manager Maria van Beek to a special meeting.
However, because of the recent attempt on her life which has made her indisposed, Ramjattan argued that other officials should be called to answer certain pertinent questions which members may have.
“This is the function of this important Committee…Our monitoring duty is not to read in the newspapers what are to the developments and report such newspaper stories to the National Assembly”, he told Kaieteur News, pointing out that the latter is what it appears the Committee wants.
Ramjattan opined that a key stumbling block is the narrow and conservative attitude of Chairman of the Committee, Presidential advisor Gail Teixeira and the other PPP/C members to a lesser extent.
He believes that her position/interpretation as it relates to monitoring was too narrow in that she is of the opinion that monitoring meant just observing.

According to Ramjattan, the Opposition is now severely frustrated because there are so many unanswered questions and an inquiry, which could be very useful, now seems very unlikely.
Ramjattan emphasized that the Committee was an oversight and scrutinizing body, and cautioned against conservatism.
“Gail’s conservatism will degut the Committee of this primary function”.
Ramjattan also alluded to Teixeira’s stand on the argument of sub judice which “she wants to use as a second line of defence to prevent the Committee from checking as to what happened at CLICO (Guyana)”.
He explained that the sub judice principle is in place substantially for the purpose to prevent the influencing of a Judge in coming to any decision.
“If the meeting of the Economic Services Committee on this matter of monitoring of CLICO will be in camera as was decided by the Committee, how could that influence the Judge in the resolution of the issues before him? And by the way, the issues the AFC and I think the PNC want answers to in the Committee have nothing to do with what Acting Chief Justice Chang is to decide in the Court matter.”
Ramjattan who is a prominent lawyer of almost 25 years standing and a Parliamentarian for over 16years argued, “Parliament is a sort of a Court, too, and its processes must not be cribbed and circumscribed by simply the fact that a matter which it wants to deal with is in Court…So when we go into an extensive investigation of NIS later this year, as we are preparing to do, must we necessarily stop that investigation if Dr Roger Luncheon, arranges somebody to bring an action in the High Court against the NIS?”
He said that such an approach is tantamount to an abdication of the duty of Parliamentarians and an indirect ousting of their jurisdiction as Parliamentarians.
He claimed that he walked out after realising that, “this so-called monitoring exercise would be one big farce” and left with the remark to Teixeira that her role was “to ensure a big cover-up”.
Following the commencement of the CLICO meltdown leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) Robert Corbin had tabled a motion in the National Assembly to have and investigation into the affairs of CLICO but the motion was watered down to call on the Economic Services Committee of Parliament to monitor the developments as these unfold in relation to CLICO (Guyana).
Corbin, who tabled the motion for debate, told the House that his party had long called for a ‘think tank’ to be established, so that suggestions could be forthcoming on how to best cushion against the impact of the Global Financial Crisis.
Instead, he said, the nation was regaled with the sentiment that the Government had everything under control.
He said that despite that position by the Government, two large companies were laying off people, while this was the same with smaller companies.
The CLICO debacle is only adding to the problem, he said.
Corbin also pointed to the legislation to which the Minister referred, and which allowed for far-reaching oversight, pointing out that it was not used as efficiently as it could have been.
He pointed to the fact that in The Bahamas and in Trinidad and Tobago, at the earliest sign of trouble the governments moved to the courts.
In Guyana’s case there was a slothful approach, Corbin said.
“Those responsible for regulation should have taken a clue… We were told that we were doing an excellent job of monitoring… There was a laissez faire approach to what was clearly an impending situation.”
There was also reference to the fact that, when the Trinidadian Government made a move on CL Financial, then Chief Executive Officer of CLICO (Guyana), Geeta Singh-Knight, issued a statement saying that Guyana was not exposed, given that it was independent.
This was later learnt to be untrue, after it was discovered that CLICO (Guyana) was significantly exposed to The Bahamas.
He said that it was clear that all was not well with CLICO (Guyana), therefore there should be an investigation into who benefited from the payouts that were effected when the company managed to sell bonds held in the Berbice Bridge, providing some amount of liquidity to the company prior to the takeover.
Corbin pointed out also that for well over a year the Commissioner of Insurance knew that the company had invested more than it should have had outside of Guyana, and this is in light of the statement by Singh-Knight that the company was not exposed.
Raphael Trotman, leader of the AFC at the time, told the House that it was clear that the lessons that should have been leant from the financial crisis of the 1990s were clearly not learnt.
He supported the call for more punitive measures, adding that it should be applied to the regulators as well.
The AFC leader also raised the issue of the sale of the bonds held by CLICO (Guyana) in the Berbice Bridge, questioning whether it did not raise any alarms.

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