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Murray Right on Clico payout

Sep 22, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
With regards to the Clico compensation issue, I think Presidential hopeful Winston Murray has adopted the right attitude in addressing the matter (KN Sep 21). People need to quickly recoup their investment.
At the end of the day, people don’t care whether President Jagdeo or an official from the Bank of Guyana presided over the meeting with shareholders and commit to compensate them.  People want their money. That is the bottom line.  Anything else is befuddling the issue. People are concerned about recovering their losses not how the money is obtained or who is giving them the money.
If I were a shareholder or an insurance policyholder with Clico, I will feel very comfortable in having the President address the bailout and make a commitment to repay me.
In this way, I will have ease of mind that I will recover my investment. And if the payout is expedited, more powers to those who find the money and commit to paying it.  While Shri Chris Ram made some valid points in his commentary in SN (Sep 19), I think the government is pursuing the right policy in finding a way to help investors recover their money expeditiously.
I doubt policyholders would query whose money the government is using to repay them.
Let me note that as in Guyana, in neighbouring Trinidad, the government has committed to repaying investors, bank depositors, and insurance policy holders a portion (TT$75,000) of money lost in Clico now and further payments over the next 20 years (some people invested millions of TT dollars in Clico bank which was paying some of the highest interest rate in the world).
In Trinidad, unlike so far in Guyana, the new (Kamla Persad Bissessar-led) government is using taxpayers’ money to compensate policyholders.
Overall, Trinis lost some TT$12 billion or almost US$2 billion (G$400 billion) as compared with less than G$5 billion lost by Guyanese investors.
Vishnu Bisram

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