Tewarie clears the air on his role on CLF board

A lawyer for Gita Sakal said Tuesday former CL Financial board member, now Planning Minister Dr Bhoendradatt Tewarie, arranged "sponsorship and gifts" from the company for institutions he headed.

Justin Phelps, acting for the former CL Financial (CFL) corporate secretary made the point during his cross-examination of Tewarie.

Tewarie told the inquiry on Monday he was "surprised" to hear about the compensation packages given to CL Financial board members. He said in the 15 years he served as a non executive member of the board of CLF he was paid an attendance fee only once for attending a board meeting in Florida.

However Phelps said while that may be true Tewarie received "personal benefits" because of his position as a board member.

Tewarie is a former head of the Institute of Business (IOB) and Phelps stated that in his dual position as IOB head and CLF board member he received benefits for the IOB, which included an endowment of US$100,000 annually for three years.

Tewarie confirmed that CLF invested in the IOB and also said when he was principal at the University of the West Indies he also secured support from CL Financial.

He stated that Republic Bank Ltd (a subsidiary of CLF) invested $80 million to build a three-storey building at the St Augustine campus.

Tewarie said these were not for his personal gain or benefit. "All of these things were done as public good, they were not done for personal benefit," he told Phelps.

"They were done leveraging the relationship I had with CL Financial in order to do things for education, for the community, for public education, for things like that and I feel the manner in which you are presenting the information is not a reasonable way to present it," Tewarie said.

Phelps also questioned Tewarie's reasons behind meeting with Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams a month before a Memorandum of Understanding was signed with the then PNM government for a billion-dollar bailout of CL Financial.

Tewarie offered a statement on the issues. 

"This is how universities operate, this is how educational institutions operate and when I went to the Governor of the Central Bank it was not out of personal interest. 

"If it were out of personal interest I would have resigned from CL Financial a long time ago because I was getting no money for being there so it was not out of personal interest," Tewarie said.

"So when I went to the Governor it had nothing to do with personal interest; it had to do with this public interest, with this country's interest and I made that very clear to him and if the Governor is honest about it he would indicate that I mentioned those things. 

"I know that the Governor has to insulate himself because he has to focus on CLICO and CIB and institutions such as that but I was not on CLICO, I was not on CIB, I was on CL Financial and I was looking at the global picture and when I went to him it was this impact that I was looking at," he said.

"I want to assure you Mr Phelps that there is no attempt on my part to cast blame on anybody nor is it to absolve myself from blame if there is blame to me.

"What I am saying is the circumstances of CL Financial, its evolution, the role of the board, the structure of the company, the culture of the company, the governance culture that evolved, the dominant role of the chairman, the fiefdom creation of individual executives within the company, the role of the corporate secretary in the absence of the chairman. I do not see how that could result in my taking responsibility for any significant thing that happened in CL Financial."