Afra Raymond is interviewed on the ‘The Power Breakfast‘ show on Power 102 FM by Rhoda Bharath and Richard Ragoobarsingh discussing the ongoing CL Financial bailout saga. 1 June 2016. Audio courtesy Power 102 FM
With apologies to readers, in the previous article, I mistakenly named UTT as the SoE which had sued its Directors over allegations of a negligent 2005 investment, in fact it is eTeck which sued its Board. A lawsuit was launched by UTT on a similar series of allegations, but that was abandoned in July 2015.
Both those Boards were headed by Professor Ken Julien.
The previous article prompted a series of extremely interesting responses, so I will continue this examination of the State Controlled Agencies. That phrase includes State-owned Enterprises (such as UDECOTT, Caribbean Airlines and EFCL) and Statutory Agencies (like WASA, TTEC, CDA, PATT and HDC).
Some sharp objections were made to my comparison of the relation between the State, the Government and Citizens to a Company, its Board of Directors and its shareholders. I maintain that this is a valid comparison for us to reflect on the proper roles and responsibilities of the various public officials, but perhaps more importantly, the responsibilities of us citizens. Continue reading “Board Games – part 2”
On Sunday 22nd May 2016, the front-page story in this newspaper was headlined ‘We will pay it back‘. That article featured very interesting quotes from former CL Financial Executive Chairman, Lawrence Duprey as well as the Minister of Finance & the Economy, Colm Imbert, on the prospects for repayment of the huge sums of Public Money spent on this CL Financial bailout.
Duprey claimed to have made a formal proposal to the State to repay taxpayers and all stakeholders who are owed money, while insisting that the amount owed was yet to be determined. The failure or refusal of the State to publish any audited statements in relation to this CL Financial bailout appears to be impeding the discussions as to a settlement of this massive debt. The sidebar contains a summary of how the Public Money spent on this bailout has grown from the initial 2009 estimates of $5 Billion to a 2016 figure now said to exceed $24 Billion. Continue reading “CL Financial bailout – Duprey’s Story: SIFI vs PIFI”
The recent controversy over the dismissal of Dennise Demming as Chair of the Tourism Development Company (TDC) has sparked yet another round of debate on the role and operation of State-owned-Enterprises (SoEs).
Some of the issues which have arisen are –
The recent high-level of public concern over the SSA Amendment Bill was of limited concern to me, until I started listening properly. In the event, the proposed law was passed by the Parliament and there is some threat from the Opposition of a lawsuit to test its constitutionality. We will see.
Two very interesting stances surfaced during the heated debates and it is at these kind of moments that I sometimes think of our so-called political divide. Those were the Right to Privacy stance disclosed by the AG and the private briefing of Parliamentarians as a legislative tool.
The AG, Faris Al Rawi, was emphatic on 2nd May 2016 that we have ‘…no enshrined right to privacy under the law…‘. He was almost immediately contradicted by former CJ, Michael de la Bastide QC, who relied on Section 4 (c) of the Constitution which specifies ‘the right of the individual to respect for his private and family life’. In ‘The creep of Tyranny‘ on Monday 9th May 2016 in this newspaper, my colleague Michael Harris also made strong objections to the AG’s stance. Of course we have rights to privacy and those are entrenched in our Constitution, but now those rights can be limited by the new law, intended to promote national security. Continue reading “Privacy Pros & Cons”
Last week we learned that Lawrence Duprey and his fellow CL Financial shareholders are victims of a badly-handled bailout. According to the Duprey version, the State must halt all asset disposals and he must regain control of the CL Financial group of companies. In what seemed to be an immediate response, Minister of Finance & the Economy, Colm Imbert, said he was so alarmed at the gross mismatch in the bailout figures that he decided to order a forensic audit on the entire process. These two contrasting stories are the latest big news on the CL Financial bailout.
I have always objected to the CL Financial bailout and it has become a strong example of how the Public Interest can be perverted under a series of disguises.
The Imbert Initiative looks like a welcome move to examine the details of this scandalous waste of Public Money. The proposed forensic audit seems to signal some official appetite for disclosure. However, if this is to properly protect the Public Interest, there are some ‘litmus tests’ which can show the official commitment to disclosure
This article will examine those two proposals so that some meaning might emerge from this utter, deliberate confusion.
Continue reading “CL Financial Bailout – Duprey’s Gambit”
“…The first responsibility that devolves upon you is the protection and promotion of your democracy. Democracy means more, much more, than the right to vote and one vote for every man and every woman of the prescribed age…”
—Dr Eric Williams, in his first Independence address, on 31st August 1962.
We are now at a place in which our political parties routinely subject us to misleading promises to win elections, followed by a sharp dose of reality as we realise which financiers are actually in charge of important public policy. This has been happening for a while now, but while we can criticise the various political parties, our gullibility is at the root of the problem. Many of us still believe in ‘Father Christmas’, so we remain stuck in a loop of high expectations leading to deep disappointment. Frustration and outrage appear to be key features of the ‘new normal’ we are all now living.
Obviously, we need a big shift in how the membership of the political parties hold their leaders accountable once office is attained, but there are other aspects of public affairs which need to change. Some say that once we choose not to vote, we have lost the right to criticise the actions of public officials, since we are effectively opting-out of the system. I believe it is important to remember that politics is not a single choice made by the voter at elections: politics is how we live our lives together and choose everyday.
Continue reading “Telling Truths”
Afra Raymond is interviewed by Rennnie Bishop on 107.7FM on Sunday 17, April 2016 to discuss Invader’s Bay; the end of the Las Alturas Enquiry; the Panama Papers and the needs for implementation of the best practice procedures to our public administration.
On Thursday 17th March 2016, the Office of the Prime Minster confirmed that the appointment of Housing & Urban Development Minister, Marlene McDonald, had been revoked. On Tuesday 22nd March 2016, the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) Board issued a Press Release to confirm that its Managing Director, Jearlean John, had been dismissed.
In less than one week, the two top public officials in our country’s housing program had been removed from office. It does not seem decisive that both those dismissed officials were female, but it is more likely that there is another connection between these events.
We have lacked proper standards of governance in our country for so many decades that some people are seeing these dismissals as a ‘breath of fresh air’ in which those new standards are being set. An apparent case of actions speaking louder than words. Continue reading “Property Matters – Housing Issues – part 6”
With apologies to readers, this is to correct my figures in relation to the amount of Public Money which TTMF received in relation to the 2% subsidised mortgage programme. The figures disclosed in TTMF’s Summary Financial Statements are actually liabilities, being the reducing balance on the original allocation of $200M for this programme.
The recalculated figures for TTMF’s recovery of 2% mortgage subsidy 2007 to 2014 are
| YEAR | SUBSIDY (cumulative) |
| 2007 | $.9M |
| 2008 | $5.3M |
| 2009 | $16.5M |
| 2010 | $34.1M |
| 2011 | $52.7M |
| 2012 | $70.4M |
| 2013 | $87.4M |
| 2014 | $105.2M |
These figures are far less than those I cited in my article, since only $105.2M has been drawn from the original allocation of $200M, as against my erroneous claim that $1,227.5M of Public Money had been spent on this subsidy.
Last week I examined housing subsidy to illustrate the ways in which Public Money is used to provide better housing opportunities.
The sidebar contains my correction, which shows that a total of $105.2M was spent in this 2% subsidised mortgage programme between 2007-2014. I was also informed that the 2% subsidised mortgage had been granted to 1,466 applicants, who earn less than $10,000 per month, to buy homes under $850,000. In late 2014, TTMF also started offering 5% mortgages to applicants who earn up to $30,000 per month for homes up to $1.2M – 298 of those mortgages have been granted to date.
This revision and the new information will require that we pay even greater attention to the HDC’s operations, since it far outstrips the other agencies providing housing options.
So, what is the proportion of applicants between the lower and middle income groups? At pg 28 of the Vision 2020 Housing Sub Committee Report (2005) that is estimated as follows –
“…shows that more than half of the demand for housing to 2020 (57.3%) falls within the low-income group with 30.7% in the middle income group and 12% in the high-income group…”.
It is difficult to reconcile those researched conclusions as to the demand for homes with the actual distribution of new HDC homes, in which only 21.7% were rentals. The pattern of distribution of those homes seems to indicate that the decision was taken to promote home-ownership in preference to building rental units. There is no doubt that this decision was detrimental to the neediest applicants, who were unable to qualify for mortgages, while at the same time being beneficial to those whose earnings qualified them for mortgages. Continue reading “Property Matters – Housing Issues – part 5”
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