Panday wants same treatment for HCU and CL

Opposition leader Basdeo Panday is waiting for confirmation from Parliament on when members of the House of Representatives would debate his private motion calling on the government "to employ the same rationale used to justify its multi-billion-dollar ‘blank-cheque’ bailout of CL Financial" and take steps to secure the investments of depositors and shareholders with the Hindu Credit Union (HCU).

He filed the Private Members’ Motion on April 24, 2009 noting that one of the main motivating factors behind government’s intervention in the CL Financial issue was to save CL depositors’ investments, and that government "was willing to spend an unknown sum that is in excess of $5 billion to do so."

Panday said HCU’s liabilities were approximately $776 million, and the organization required an even smaller sum to secure the investments of HCU depositors and shareholders.

"Yet the government has chosen to intervene to protect CL investors but not the more than 100,000 HCU depositors and shareholders," Panday said in a news release Monday.

Panday’s motion challenges the government to do as it did for the CL investors, and take steps to protect the investments of HCU shareholders and depositors.

The motion reads:

WHEREAS:

• the Minister of Finance in announcing the Government bailout of CL Financial clearly enunciated its commitment to ensure that depositors’ assets will not be at risk; and
• the government has now agreed to inject $5,000 million into CL Financial over the next two years to protect policyholders of CL Financial subsidiary CLICO and depositors of failed wealth management firm CLICO Investment Bank (CIB); and
• the Hindu Credit Union consists of over 100,000 depositors many of whom are small investors who have invested their life savings in the Credit Union; and
• the total liability of the Hindu Credit Union is estimated to be in the vicinity of $776 million; and
• Trinidad and Tobago is currently experiencing symptoms of a recession with the resultant financial hardships on depositors who are unable to access their savings and investments in the HCU;

BE IT RESOLVED THAT this Honourable House calls on the Government to take immediate steps to bailout the Hindu Credit Union so as to ensure that the deposits and investments of depositors and shareholders are totally protected from loss.