Guest column: Questions for former PNM minister about the CL fiasco - by Robin Montano

When I saw that former minister Mariano Browne was weighing in on the CLICO/CL Financial imbroglio in the Express (October 28) my first thought was that perhaps now we might get some answers to the very vexing questions that have bedevilled us since January of last year.

Unfortunately, Mr Browne's intervention has not cleared the air at all, and although he has taken some (probably well-deserved) "potshots'' at the present Minister of Finance, his articles do not add anything to the public's knowledge of what happened or even what is happening.

So, Mr Browne, if you really want to clear the air and to help people understand what happened and (probably more importantly) what should happen, perhaps you would not mind answering the following questions:

• What exactly caused the CLICO collapse? Is it true that the "trigger" was a decision by the Manning regime to pull out a deposit(s) of some $200 million from CLICO Investment Bank? If so, who made that decision and why? If no such withdrawal was made, then what caused the collapse?

• When did CLICO/CL Financial (which we'll just call "CLICO'' for now) become insolvent? Is it true that CLICO was insolvent ten years ago when then attorney general Ramesh Maharaj made the accusation in Parliament? If so, what recommendations were made by then governor of the Central Bank (Winston Dookeran) and then minister of finance (Gerald Yetming) to deal with the issue and the attorney general's accusations?

• If there were recommendations made what action did the Manning regime take on same? (We know that the Panday regime did not do anything). If no recommendations were made, did the incoming Manning regime pay attention to this accusation by the attorney general? If not, why not? If yes, then what did it do?

• What responsibility does the last finance minister (Karen Nunez-Tesheira) have for this debacle? What responsibility does her predecessor in office, Patrick Manning, who was the finance minister, have?

• You were a minister in the Ministry of Finance for several years. Did you have any oversight/responsibility for CLICO? If not, who was the politician under whose remit such responsibility lay when you were there? In other words, who should we be asking to tell us what happened? Who had the responsibility?

• What responsibility does the present Governor of the Central Bank have for this mess?

• Did the last finance minister get an early warning in December 2008 that CLICO was going under, which warning caused her to take her money out? If so, who gave her that warning?

• CLICO's reach extended deep into both political parties. We know, for example, that CLICO gave the PNM $5 million for its 2007 general election campaign. That's a lot of money in anybody's book. Did these political contributions hamper the regulatory authorities from doing what they were supposed to do in the first place?

• If the answer to the above is "yes'' is this not a form of corruption? And if "yes'' what politicians are likely to be charged?

• Do you believe that there has been fraud? Is there a possibility that there has been fraud? Can you say definitively that one thing that we don't have to worry about is the possibility of fraud?

• If there is a possibility of fraud why has nothing apparently been done in this regard? And if you say that you can't answer for what happened since May 24 (which would be reasonable) then what about the period before May 24?

I could go on, but you surely get the point. 

There are a lot more questions that the present Minister of Finance has to answer (or at least, ought to answer) and it is clear that some of the answers to the above questions might very well require explanations from him. 

But a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, and if Mr Browne is really interested in the public understanding the full extent of the problem then perhaps he would seriously consider answering these few questions.

And finally, Mr Browne, I wish to go on record as supporting the Prime Minister in her setting up of a Commission of Enquiry. 

At the very least we could hope to understand what happened and why it was allowed to happen. She is operating the way a Prime Minister ought to operate: letting the people know what is going on. 

It is a great pity that other politicians do not operate the way she does. I simply cannot accept your broad dismissal of the enquiry as being non-productive.

- Robin Montano, Attorney at law; former Senator
Read more of Robin's works at THE RAG