CLF paid $2M a month to Duprey's wife's consultancy firm: Sakal

Gita Sakal said Friday Lawrence Duprey's wife was a director at a consultancy firm that CL Financial (CLF) paid 200,000 pounds a month (TT$2M) in 2007 for a useless dividend and management plan.

The former Corporate Secretary of CLF was continuing her testimony Friday the at CLICO/HCU inquiry. She told Clico's attorney, Neal Bisnath, Clico had a 90 per cent shareholding in the firm, Ibis Management Consultancy.

Sakal said a key factor that led to the collapse of the conglomerate and the billion-dollar bailout by the Manning administration was the billions of dollars in debt owed to Clico by other CL subsidiaries.

She pointed out that CLF had a liquidity problem long before the bailout. And she said the company continued with major acquisitions since the subsidiary boards were intertwined until 2005.

Sakal told Bisnath Duprey's wife was a director in both CLF and the Ibis consultancy firm, which was paid $60 million by CL Financial for three projects. "They never completed their Terms of Reference." she said.

"They made contributions, but not valuable contributions. Not in keeping with their remuneration. The fact that they went into investments and were asking for money to invest from 2006 showed that they joined the Chairman in his quest for acquisitions. They started behaving like the Senior Executives in the Group," Sakal added.

Bisnath also pointed out that top Clico executives Karen-Ann Gardier and Ian Garcia, siphoned millions of dollars from the insurance company and transferred the funds to their private companies.

He said the funds were then used to open US million-dollar Executive Flexible Premium Annuities (EFPAs) at CLICO.

Gardier was CLICO's former financial controller and Garcia held the position of chief marketing officer at the insurance company.