The Corporate Secretary of the CL Financial group received a salary of US$35,000 and an annual bonus of US$2 million. In addition, Gita Sakal paid her consultancy firm US$5 million (TT$32.5 million) without the knowledge of CL chairman Lawrence Duprey.
The revelation came from former CL Financial Director Michael Carballo who told the Clico/HCU commission of enquiry Tuesday about what he called strange commissions and exorbitant bonuses at CL.
"There were some weaknesses in internal controls, significant weaknesses in internal controls at CL Financial," Carballo said.
He said one of the problems was that Sakal, had control over all financial transactions.
"People were preparing vouchers and paying themselves, it is hard to control situations like this whereby we have Gita Sakal controlling all banking arrangements and paying herself," Carballo said.
"There were significant problems in terms of what we call proper segregation of duties, whereby the payee and the person approving the payment voucher under proper standards are supposed to be separate so you are supposed to have a segregation of duties so you do not have one paying themselves and this was highlighted when CL Financial had what it called a corporate oversight team," he said.
Carballo said Sakal signed both the invoice and the bank instructions for the debit of US$5 million from CL Financial's US dollar account at Royal Bank to pay her consultancy firm, Corporate Consultants Ltd.
He said when Duprey found out about it he ordered that the money be "immediately returned".
Carballo also told the enquiry that Andre Monteil, who was his successor at CL, also sought a US$2 million consultancy fee and $194 million in commissions. He wanted that in order to help CL Financial out of its financial troubles. He said that outraged CL board members.
With respect to the "strange" commissions, he noted that these were being paid with respect to real estate projects in Florida. Carballo pointed out one instance in which a broker named Charles Pratt told him that he was paid US$85 million on the US$300 Green Island Project.
He said the real estate holdings in Florida were managed by a company with the acronym DYL which carried the surnames of Lawrence Duprey, John Yanopoulos and Geoffrey Leid.
"And again I wonder what is Geoffrey Leid's involvement in this especially at a time when Geoffrey Leid is a director and company secretary of an insurance company called CLICO," Carballo said.
"To my knowledge you cannot be a director and company secretary at CLICO and sneak in behind the scenes and generate significant fees on projects whereby the exact funding is coming from the same organisation that you are a director of. DYL is being funded by CLICO," he said.
The revelation came from former CL Financial Director Michael Carballo who told the Clico/HCU commission of enquiry Tuesday about what he called strange commissions and exorbitant bonuses at CL.
"There were some weaknesses in internal controls, significant weaknesses in internal controls at CL Financial," Carballo said.
He said one of the problems was that Sakal, had control over all financial transactions.
"People were preparing vouchers and paying themselves, it is hard to control situations like this whereby we have Gita Sakal controlling all banking arrangements and paying herself," Carballo said.
"There were significant problems in terms of what we call proper segregation of duties, whereby the payee and the person approving the payment voucher under proper standards are supposed to be separate so you are supposed to have a segregation of duties so you do not have one paying themselves and this was highlighted when CL Financial had what it called a corporate oversight team," he said.
Carballo said Sakal signed both the invoice and the bank instructions for the debit of US$5 million from CL Financial's US dollar account at Royal Bank to pay her consultancy firm, Corporate Consultants Ltd.
He said when Duprey found out about it he ordered that the money be "immediately returned".
Carballo also told the enquiry that Andre Monteil, who was his successor at CL, also sought a US$2 million consultancy fee and $194 million in commissions. He wanted that in order to help CL Financial out of its financial troubles. He said that outraged CL board members.
With respect to the "strange" commissions, he noted that these were being paid with respect to real estate projects in Florida. Carballo pointed out one instance in which a broker named Charles Pratt told him that he was paid US$85 million on the US$300 Green Island Project.
He said the real estate holdings in Florida were managed by a company with the acronym DYL which carried the surnames of Lawrence Duprey, John Yanopoulos and Geoffrey Leid.
"And again I wonder what is Geoffrey Leid's involvement in this especially at a time when Geoffrey Leid is a director and company secretary of an insurance company called CLICO," Carballo said.
"To my knowledge you cannot be a director and company secretary at CLICO and sneak in behind the scenes and generate significant fees on projects whereby the exact funding is coming from the same organisation that you are a director of. DYL is being funded by CLICO," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment