There must be an investigation

Jun 20, 2009 Editorial

The Clico issue has taken turns and twists along the way, and despite the assurance by President Bharrat Jagdeo, investors are still to receive monies they had invested in the company. The Judicial Manager, after an initial letter to the various depositors, particularly those who had invested in a fund that offered a relatively high interest rate, has said nothing else. There was movement by the Judicial Manager to liquidate the local entity but the courts balked, asking instead that the Judicial Manager provide documentation on the state of the company.

Nearly two months after that order, there is no word on whether a comprehensive record of the local Clico has been provided to the court. We know that the Judicial Manager did ask for more time and that request was granted.
Since then, the people assigned to deal with Clico, sought to have the company liquidate assets to pay legal expenses and other incidentals, while the courts decide on whether the company should be liquidated.
Certainly there is no legal action, and no move to prosecute anyone who might have been responsible for investments that may surely be lost. Clico Guyana sent some US$36 million to The Bahamas in many tranches, but this money went to a Bank in the United States at the request of the representative of Clico Bahamas.

Such was the nature of the transfer of funds, that the liquidator initially said that there was no record of any transfer from Guyana. He later reported that the transfers appeared to be a movement of cash between individuals, rather than inter-company transfers. There have been no investigations into this method of transfer and certainly there is hardly likely to be any. Indeed, it took the government to get to the bottom of the money transfers, when the Prime Minister of Bahamas told his Parliament that there was no record of any money being transferred from Guyana.
People have since protested the continued presence of the head of the local Clico entity. They are saying that with the appointment of the judicial manager, the Clico Chief Executive Officer has no authority over the Clico assets. Some actually moved to the courts to challenge the continued operation of the Chief Executive Officer, but their efforts have so far been thwarted by the very judicial manager, who contends that these people are now members of her staff.

But we insist that someone must be made to be brought to book for, in the first instance, transferring overseas, more money that they should have when they did. Someone must also be made to answer for the failure to have the money returned to Guyana.
Having said that, we must also seek answers to fate of those who were employed by Clico, but who have been put on the breadline even though the very Clico was insistent that there was no need for the government to seek to take control of its assets. That suggestion is that Clico was very solvent and could have weathered the storm. But for all this, it decided to introduce cost cutting measures, by sacking the staff and closing agencies.

The salaries of the senior Clico executives have not escaped notice by those made to join the breadline.
But all this pales into insignificance, when one considers that there is a wall of silence surrounding what is happening with deposits in Clico. Indeed, depositors placed their money in Clico at their own risk. It was therefore laudable that President Jagdeo could move so readily to protect their money. But having given the assurance, the powers that be need to keep the investors constantly briefed about the promised return of their money. It would be even better if there is an investigation into the operations of Clico, so that the people could know what was done wrong and what should not have happened.
Indeed, in other instances people are being prosecuted. Allen Stanford in just one who did what Clico Guyana did.

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