The CLICO meeting was an abuse of the fear of the poor man

Sep 23, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Politics as practiced by the Jagdeo regime is becoming more predictable as this plagued term of office fast approaches its expiry date.
When one notices all the ghost writers like the Todd Morgans and the Elizabeth Dalys are woken from their graves with a few real creatures of the regime, like Dr Prem Misir, as flavouring to the PR spin, we must be alert enough to know that the maximum leader has messed up yet again.
I had the displeasure of being sent the column of Dr. Misir by a friend (I have nothing personal against the good doctor). What I found in this article was a fair share of dishonesty with respect to the CLICO meeting. Dr Misir said that the meeting “was not the time and place for playing political games”.
What was President Jagdeo doing at that meeting, if not only playing political games with the poor man’s future? The Judicial System in Guyana has legally appointed a Liquidator and nowhere on that document is the name Bharat Jagdeo. The President has no “locus standi” in the liquidation process.
All Guyanese must be grateful to the Chief Justice of Guyana for his timely ruling in favour of the liquidation of CLICO’s assets, and the appointment of a liquidator. Let it be known that not one silver cent of that money that is subject for distribution by the legitimate liquidator belongs to neither President Jagdeo’s nor the PPP.
No favours were asked by the policyholders and thus no favours were granted. The policy holders are receiving what was justly theirs.
So I could not understand why the President is playing all these political games by inserting himself into a highly technical matter that requires competence of a special nature that the Office of the President does not possess.
The President’s actions has actually compromised and delayed the Bank of Guyana from doing their technical work. There is much work for the Bank of Guyana to do including analysing the company’s assets, turn them into cash and determine the best way to distribute them to the policyholders and other creditors of CLICO. There is a broad methodology for conducting liquidations including:
1. The Bank of Guyana must notify the Registrar of Companies of their appointment and the upcoming compulsory liquidation;
2. Usually within a prescribed number of days of its appointment, the Bank of Guyana would have to write all policyholders and other creditors informing them of their appointment;
3. The Bank of Guyana would have to call a meeting setting out the powers of the liquidators and the proposed strategy for the compulsory liquidation subject to the realisation of the tangible and other assets.
4. The policyholders and other creditors were suppose to be given notice of the liquidation meeting which was suppose to be called by the Bank of Guyana.
5. It is best practice to form a Liquidation Committee headed by the Chairman of the Court Appointed liquidator (the Governor), a representative from the policyholders and other creditors and including other key and critical stakeholders, such as someone from the professional fraternity (qualified accountant), to oversee the interest of all parties for transparency purposes.
6. However, the final decision for the distribution of the proceeds rest with the Court Appointed Liquidator (the Governor, not President Jagdeo).
7. At the end of the process the Bank of Guyana ought to produce liquidation statements of how the proceeds were raised and how it was distributed including liquidation fees and other costs and provide for an audit of the process.
The truth is this is just the skeleton of the process since there are many more specific procedures to be followed to prevent future legal action against the liquidator. Nowhere in the best practices is there a role for politicians unless they are policyholders.
Thus I can now understand the low turnout to the so called political meeting called by a political creature that is a “persona non grata” to the process. Unfortunately, Mr. Ram should have stayed away from this bogus CLICO meeting, since it has no basis in law and there was no justification for it; save and except that it was raw and naked “gutter” politics at the poor people’s expense. This meeting was an open abuse of the fear of the poor man who is desperate for certainty on their retirement funds, especially as the remittances from their overseas based family dwindles.
If we are to resolves the CLICO fiasco satisfactorily (took place under President Jagdeo’s watch), due respect should have been granted to the Office of the Governor of the Bank of Guyana by allowing that office to conduct itself in a Court Ordered prescribed manner. This abrogation of the authority of the powers of the Governor is a precedence that has now been institutionalised by this Jagdeo cabal. Unfortunately, their shortsightedness is contributing to a permanent down-grading of the state institutions to second-rate and third-rate organisations. This truncated strategy, while it feeds the egos of the maximum leader, destroys the nation with its long term adverse impact on the effectiveness and efficiency of the state institutions. Most young talented professional who are in these institutions are ready to book the next flight out of Guyana to run away from the “do as I say” style of government – a style of governance that does not provide them with the opportunity to think creatively and proactively to facilitate technical solutions to the nations’ challenges. Kim II Sung, the Korea dictator, believes he knows it all.
A new Government after 2011 will have the arduous task of rebuilding from the Army to the Police to now the Bank of Guyana. Many of these organisations are failing to deliver on their mandate to the people; who by the way pay their salaries.
Now let us follow the money.
• G$500 million will be used to back the liabilities of the long-term insurance business and this will be sold to another insurance company and permanently shave c7,000 insurance policy holders off the books of CLICO;
• G$2,700 million that was raised from the taxpayers of Trinidad & Tobago will be used to pay off in full c5, 000 small and medium Annuity Holders;
• G$900 million compliments of the taxpayers of Guyana will be used to pay G$30 million each to the 30 plus large creditors with priority given to non-institution policyholders.
What has not been made clear by Kim II Sung is the following:
• Who authorise the State to take the taxpayers’ money (the poor man’s VAT payments) to transfer it to large, rich creditors (you must be very rich to have a policy worth more than G$30 million);
• What will happen to the debt owed to the NIS who has in a deceptive way invested the poor man’s pension into CLICO with zero rate of return to date?
• Why has the Bank of Guyana allowed its power, integrity and independence to be denuded in such a crass fashion without even a “squeak” from their Board of Directors? Pat Matthews must be turning in his grave as he witness the humiliation of this traditionally independent institution. I remember the stories of Pat Matthews standing up to none other than Burnham on technical issues and Burnham would “huff and puff” but at the end of the day, he recognised that Matthews had the best interest of the nation at heart and left him to do his thing. Are those days gone for good?
From what I have unearthed so far, the Bank of Guyana will face a legal challenge to the way they have conducted themselves to date on this CLICO fiasco, but let the payments begin. In closing, let it be made clear from Monkey Mountain to Mahaica, from Manchester to Mashabo that not one silver cent of the money being paid to the policy holders of CLICO came from neither the pockets of President Jagdeo nor his henchmen. Next time a Guyanese see a Trini, give him or her a big hug because they are your brothers and sisters. The Trinis paid off your policy that the Jagdeo regime squandered by way of poor Insurance Oversight, directly facilitating the shipping out and losing of billions of your money to the Bahamas. I rest my case as I head down to Liberty Ave to find myself some Trini doubles and a nice cold Trini Carib beer, and hopefully find a Trini to thank them for saving the working class people of Guyana.
Sasenarine Singh

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