Don't be fooled. CL is the PNM's mess - the Peter O'Connor column

“The skill with which the PNM has exploited the situation is in total contrast to the ineptitude of their election campaign, and that is why I maintain they took a conscious decision to sacrifice the elections and step out of government so that others would have to carry the burden, and take the blame, for what was going to happen.”

I published this in September 1987, just nine months after the NAR swept the corrupt and incompetent PNM government from power.

But clearly it is as true today—maybe more so—than it was back then.

I was writing then of the PNM’s campaign of misinformation and destabilization against the NAR government which was trying to clean up the mess which George Chambers, Patrick Manning and others had left for us.

It would be interesting if some enterprising reporter would try to get Kamaluddin Mohammed to talk about those days leading to the 1986 elections, when the writing was on the wall for the PNM, and their stalwarts like Desmond Carty were saying “All ah we tief” (sic).

Would Kamal admit today that the PNM needed to demit office in the face of the then coming tsunami created by their earthquake of corruption and gross incompetence?

Listen, the propaganda they put out in 1987 was so strong it still remains in the head of Labour Minister (and acting Prime Minister!) Errol McLeod.

When Errol was constrained to explain his remarks about Winston Dookeran being considered the person (as NAR Minister of Planning and Finance) who “took us” into the toxic embrace of World Bank Restructuring, it is clear that he, like almost everyone else, still believes that Robbie and the NAR called in the World Bank after the PNM had corruptly bankrupted us, while their friends and cronies (all ah dem who tief so boldly!) walked off with their wealth.

Listen to me, folks: It was George Chambers and the PNM who called in the World Bank to take your COLA, remove your subsidies and cut your wages. It was George Chambers and the PNM who retrenched more of you in 1985 and 1986 than Robbie and the NAR retrenched in 1987. These are indelible facts written into our history if not retained in our hearts.

So why am I raising this today? Because in a very real sense, the country may find itself worse off in the coming months that we were in those dark days of 1987, when the cold grip of the World Bank was squeezing us. Because it is becoming apparent that the shenanigins of CLICO can cause our whole economy to collapse.

What is becoming known—I cannot say “clear”—is that there is no way that the mess created can be resolved at all.

The so-called assets of CLICO, from bank shares to petrochemicals to rum and real estate in Miami and god knows where else, are all pledged to foreign banks and financiers.

This means these assets cannot be sold to raise money to repay local and Caribbean policy holders who thought they were insured, or repay investors who thought they were being smart to climb into bed with Duprey and Monteil, or to get profits from their shares in Clico Investment Bank.

But some—a very few—got their money out, right?

And those very few also pocketed their dividends, paid out to the select few even as Duprey was calling in the Central Bank to rescue those who were not forewarned to get their money out and pocket their “dividends” from a clearly bankrupt company.

That one of these fortunate persons was the sitting Minister of Finance at the time only underscores the depth of the plot which I believe was being conceived.

I wrote, in May of this year, “What was in his head?”- a column wondering how Manning and his sycophant group of acolytes could have called a general election in the face of a certain loss. Now, as the depth of the CLICO disaster is becoming apparent, I understand.

Consider this: As Manning, Teisheria and company begin to realize the extent of the CLICO disaster, and that it might sink T&T, they decide to pull out, and call the election. They realize that the opposition is just a “pick-up side” who will falter and stumble when they get into office. How easy to just walk away from the mess and leave it to newcomers to clean up.

And how effectively they are doing this! Already the people who lost their money in CLICO are blaming—not CLICO, not Karen, not Manning, but Dookeran and Kamla!

Fool me once: Shame on you! Fool me twice: Shame on me! Are we all getting fooled again, and believing that the PNM would have “rescued” all the CLICO victims? Wake up, T&T!