CL Financial Bailout – Studied Disdain

Sen the Hon. Larry Howai, Minister of Finance and the Economy

SIDEBAR: How much Public Money has been spent on this CL Financial bailout?

These are the official statements as to the actual cost of the bailout since 2012. It really resembles the ‘carefully cultivated confusion‘ which I deplored recently in relation to the Invader’s Bay fiasco.

3 April 2012 – Affidavit of then Finance Minister, Winston Dookeran, which specifies the Public Money committed to this colossal bailout as –
```
Para 21 (a) $5.0Bn already provided to CLICO;
         (b) $7.0Bn paid to holders of the EFPA and
Para 22 $12.0Bn estimated as further funding to 
be advanced.
```
Dookeran is saying in April 2012 that $12 Billion had been paid and an estimated $12 Billion remained to be paid, which is a total of $24Bn in public money to be spent to satisfy the creditors of the CLF group.
1 October 2012 – Senator Larry Howai, delivering his first Budget Statement, stated the cost of the CL Financial bailout at page six –
“…The cost to the national community has been substantial—an amount of $19.7 billion or 13.0 per cent of our current GDP; yet this expenditure was necessary and decisive for containing an economic and financial crisis…”
Howai is telling the Senate in October 2012, a mere six months after Dookeran’s Affidavit, that $19.7 Billion has been spent. If we follow this official account, which fixed the total spent in April 2012 at $12 Billion, an additional $7.7 Billion of Public Money was spent in six months. I continue to contest whether this bailout was at all necessary, but it was certainly an incredible rate of expenditure, that cannot be contested.
4 May 2013 – In this newspaper, under the headline ‘$25b and counting – Cost to taxpayers of CLICO bailout and enquiry‘ –
“…However, Government’s intervention into the CLICO fiasco has cost taxpayers more than $25 billion…”
17 May 2013 – UNCTT’s website contains a formal Press Release from the office of the then Attorney General, Anand Ramlogan SC –
“…It should be noted that efforts to stabilize and resuscitate CLICO have thus far cost taxpayers over $25 billion dollars…”
2 April 2014 – At the Senate sitting , Minister Howai stated at page 35 of Hansard –
“…Mr. President, as you would perhaps be aware, the cost to the country of the CL Financial bailout—the actual cash that has been put out—is approximately $20.8 billion. This was done in an effort to preserve the stability of the economy of Trinidad and Tobago…”
7 August 2015 – I was therefore astonished to hear the Minister of Finance, Larry Howai, stating on CNMG TV, that the cost of this bailout is ‘not quite $20 Billion‘.

The first item, Dookeran’s April 2012 affidavit, is the one for which Howai is now being required by the Court to produce the details.

Some of my views on this, from last week –

“…Well, this is the usual practice, in which the public right to know is subordinated to private, undisclosed interests…it seems to me at these moments that the job of the State’s attorneys is to shroud the entire indecent affair in ‘something resembling an important principle’, but ultimately the effort is intended to wear me down and let the issue fade from collective memory…I am continuing to fight this very hard…what we have here is the ultimate collapse of our Republic by Public Officials who are sworn to uphold the Public Interest without fear or favour, but end up exposed as serving the toxic interests of the financial robber barons…I am reminded of Simon Johnson’s ‘The Quiet Coup‘ published in The Atlantic of May 2009…in T&T, we too, had a quiet coup…”

As the Season of Reflection and the impending election flow together, there is a bitter brew now being offered in relation to the CL Financial bailout.

Disdain is an attitude which denotes someone or something as being unworthy of proper consideration. I think that in relation to our collective interests in the CL Financial matter, we are now being subjected to Larry Howai’s ‘studied disdain’ in relation to our collective interests in the CL Financial matter.

On Tuesday 10 August 2015, the State announced its decision to appeal the recent High Court ruling that the details of the CL Financial bailout must be published. That appeal was also filed that day and the State applied to have the stay of execution extended to the end of the appeal process – the latter issue will be heard on 19 October 2015.

The Minister of Finance & the Economy is the main public official with responsibility to account for how Public Money is spent. The Public Money being used to bailout the CL Financial creditors is our money. The Minister of Finance therefore has a fundamental duty to publicly account for how our money has been spent.

Our collective interests in this matter, of exactly how $25 Billion of our dollars were spent, far outweigh the undisclosed interests on whose behalf the Minister is now appealing.

This appeal is against every one of the orders made in the High Court judgment of 22 July 2015 and therefore represents an utter abdication of the fundamental duties of the Minister of Finance and the Economy.

Our collective interests could benefit from the unintended juxtaposition of national elections, the apparent halt of USD sales by the country’s leading bank and the hostility of the Minister of Finance to the truth. These are rare moments in which we might gain insight and regain fundamental rights, but we have to be aware of what is at stake.

The Ministry’s Press Release deserves stern scrutiny, so these are my points. Continue reading “CL Financial Bailout – Studied Disdain” →

CL Financial Bailout – The Hidden Truth

We are now in what I call the Season of Reflection, which for me covers the period from Emancipation Day on 1 August to Independence Day on 31 August, right up to Republic Day on 24 September. Those celebrations appear in proper historical sequence in our calendar and every year I find this two-month ‘season’ to be a sobering period for deep reflection. This year, with this CL Financial judgment and the impending election seeming to converge, the reflections are piercing ones.

Sad to say, this CL Financial bailout is resembling a situation in which well-connected persons are getting what they can, anyway they can, but making sure not to get caught. Who were the beneficiaries of this lavish payout? What is this reluctance to release details?

That is the Code of Silence in effect.

I was not at all surprised at the reported statements of the Minister of Finance, Larry Howai, on the 22 July 2015 High Court judgment ordering him to provide the detailed information I had requested on the CL Financial bailout. The High Court granted a 28-day stay of execution and the Ministry is reportedly in consultation with its lawyers, claiming that “A decision will be made within the period of time allowed by the court,”. The article closed with this quote –

“…Finance Minister Larry Howai said in the statement it should be noted, none of the requests refer to “how over $25b was spent in the Clico bailout”…”

Given that the very request was for the detailed financial information which has been deliberately suppressed since 2009, it is of course impossible to say with any certainty just how much Public Money was actually spent on this CL Financial bailout. That is the inescapable fact at the centre of this scandal. The Minister’s tautology is really a powerful explanation of this point.
Continue reading “CL Financial Bailout – The Hidden Truth” →

CL Financial Bailout – The Real Case

In 2013 I sued the Minister of Finance & the Economy for his continuing failure or refusal to provide the details relating to the huge $25 Billion bailout of the failed CL Financial group.

On Wednesday 22 July 2015, the High court ruled in my favour by ordering the release of all the requested information.

The basic principle behind the Freedom of Information Act is that the information held by Public Authorities belongs to the public, unless one of the valid exemptions is applicable.

The Court also granted the State a 28-day stay of execution which seems intended to allow them the time to decide whether to appeal before they have to provide the requested information. Given the ongoing Information War and the high stakes to maintain the ‘Code of Silence’ in relation to this bailout, I would not be at all surprised if the State were to appeal against this ruling.

The unexplained gap

On 1 October 2010, the Prime Minister addressed Parliament to explain that $7.3 Billion had been spent on the bailout and that a further estimated $7.0 Billion was required to settle all debts. That is a 2010 estimate of $14.3 Billion to settle the CL Financial bailout, but the current estimated cost of the bailout is in excess of $25 Billion. That means that over $10.5 Billion more than the 2010 estimate has been spent, so where did all that extra money go? That information and the defined official policy of secrecy are at the heart of this scandal. Continue reading “CL Financial Bailout – The Real Case” →

Carlton Savannah Swirl

The escalating episode of the apparent conflict between the oversight of Parliament and the Courts in this matter is a real learning experience for us all. I am clear that the Speaker spoke on Friday 23 January 2015 with the intention to convey that the High Court had sent him an official Notice which was decisive in the conduct of the business of Parliament.

Here is the contentious sentence of Speaker Wade Mark’s statement –

…I received only a few hours ago a notice from the High Court of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago dated January 16, 2015, a matter involving Larry Howai and Azad Ali of the Sunshine Publishing Company Limited…

It seems very clear to me what the Speaker intended to say. Of course we now know that the statement was baseless and misleading. Misleading in the extreme.

The Speaker’s attempt to correct his statement only came after the Judiciary issued an unequivocal rebuff –

“…While there appears to be some misunderstanding which we expect the Honourable Speaker of the House to clarify, the Judiciary can confirm that no Notice, letter or any other communication on the matter was forwarded by the Court or any of its officers to the Speaker or any officers of the Parliament…”

How many people believe that the Speaker would have attempted to clarify, for that is all it was, if the Judiciary had said nothing?

Sidebar: TIMELINE

24 December 2014 – Larry Howai’s attorneys issue a pre-action protocol letter against the Sunshine Newspaper for the article “$470 MILLION LOAN TO LOK JACK and Others”
26 December 2014 – Sunshine Newspaper publishes “$470 MILLION LOAN TO LOK JACK and Others”
30 December 2014 – Jack Warner MP files no confidence motion against Minister of Finance & the Economy, Senator Larry Howai.
5 January 2015 – Warner’s motion is approved by the Speaker, Wade Mark.
16 January 2015 – Larry Howai’s attorneys file suit against Sunshine Newspapers for libel.
22 January 2015 – Larry Howai wrote to the Speaker.
23 January 2015 – Warner’s motion is on the agenda for Private Members Day in Parliament. After the Speaker’s statements, the motion was abandoned.
26 January 2015 – The Judiciary issues a statement to deny the Speaker’s false assertions.
26 January 2015 – The Speaker issues a statement apologises to the Judiciary and admitting, for the first time, that the letter came from Senator Larry Howai.
30 January 2015 – The Speaker issues a new statement which apologised again to the Judiciary and claimed that he had not tried to censure the debate.

Sidebar: EMBA story

In November 2013, Wade Mark threatened to sue the Trinidad Expess over its articles on the controversy surrounding the award of an Executive Masters in Business Administration (EMBA) to him by the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business (ALJ-GSB). I have heard nothing more about that lawsuit.

That episode was one with very serious allegations of improper conduct of examination processes at the ALJ-GSB, which allegedly culminated in the award of the EMBA to the Speaker of Parliament, Wade Mark.

I was very concerned over that series of allegations, given the potential impact on the reputation of the UWI, the ALJ-GSB and ultimately, the very reputation of our Parliament, if they were proven to be factual. Most unacceptable was the silence coming from the Speaker on the central issues – Was it true that the Speaker had scored 91% in the Management Accounts exam? Had the Speaker been allowed more chances than usually permitted in those exams? Had the Speaker really written to the ALJGSB on his official letterhead? If so, why?

I confronted Mark directly the next time we met, which was on the grounds of the Parliament on Tuesday 3 February 2014. After a heated exchange, during which he told me that his performance in mathematics had always been weak, Mark declined my urging to clear the air on those serious concerns and took the position that his degree had been awarded by the ALJ-GSB.

It would really be useful if the ALJ-GSB could publish the range of marks for that MBA-level Management Accounts final exam, so that we could assess the frequency with which marks over 70% are achieved.

When Parliament sat on 23 January, the first item on the Agenda of the Private Members’ Day was the no-confidence motion against Larry Howai filed by Jack Warner. The Speaker gave everyone the impression that the High Court had sent an official Notice to Parliament and never mentioned that in fact he had received those documents as part of a correspondence from Senator Larry Howai, Minister of Finance & the Economy. That Notice was said to relate to the litigation between the Minister and the Sunshine Newspaper on the financing by State-owned FCB (which had been headed by the Minister during that period) of the Carlton Savannah Hotel in Cascade. That presentation was very misleading and raised the genuine issue as to whether Members facing potentially embarrassing questions in the House had discovered a novel way to seek the protection of the Courts.

Before inviting Members to speak, the Speaker issued a clear caution –

…And in those circumstances, unless the Member who is about to speak can tell this House that what he is about to say is not going to be in any way, adverse, to what is before the High Court of Trinidad and Tobago, I would have to deny this Motion although it has been approved…

Ultimately, Warner relented and effectively withdrew his motion.
The Timeline in the Sidebar sets out the sequence of events and it is a stark example of how the Parliament and the Courts have become entwined in this latest rounds of the Silly Season.

The worse part is the third statement, made on 30 January 2015, which did little to restore confidence. It seemed that the Speaker’s was attempting to reverse his earlier clear caution to the House, claiming that –

…I wish in closing to ask Honourable Members to note that after I brought to the attention of the House the existence of the said legal proceedings, in exercise of my discretion as the Presiding Officer, I permitted debate on the motion to commence. I did not deny or shut down debate on the motion. It was the mover of the motion who, of his own volition, after he commenced his contribution, decided not to proceed…

It is true that Mark did not directly rule that the debate had to be halted, but his caution effectively shut-down the debate. That caution was based on a false statement and omitted the critical fact that the party to the debate was in fact invoking the Sub Judice principle.

At this point, I am still unclear. If Speaker Mark is in fact saying that he had no objections to the motion being debated, then that debate should be reconvened at the earliest possible sitting. The stream of letters which are beneath this disturbing sequence of events must be published, the sooner the better.

The position of Senator Howai is also inexplicable. Howai and Leader of Government Business in the House, Dr. Roodal Moonilal MP both claim to have been ready to debate the motion. So why send the letter to the Speaker?

This is real mind-games with the peoples’ business, I hold no brief for Warner or any of the other Members, they are all capable of seeking their own interest. The issues of the Carlton Savannah Hotel financing seem to be serious ones and we need to insist that the debate is started at the earliest opportunity. Some points on that issue are in the Sidebar.

I am not calling on the Speaker, or anyone for that matter, to resign. The Speaker can start to restore this situation by publishing those letters and convening an early debate on Warner’s motion.

Sidebar: Carlton Savannah Hotel

carlton-savannah It has been reported that FCB is owed over $400M borrowed for the construction of this elegant hotel on the outskirts of the Queen’s Park Savannah. That hotel is now up for sale via the receivers, Deloitte, at an asking price in the region of $120M.

The key issue evident here is the huge impact of the Hyatt Hotel on its POS rivals since its opening in early 2009. A combination of its virtual monopoly of State functions and the imperatives imposed by how it was funded have made Hyatt a unique hybrid, being at once the most elegant and most economic. Carlton Savannah seems to have been eclipsed by Hyatt and it is not the only one.

Some of the key questions would be how was the project appraised? Was sufficient security taken for this loan? What accounts for the tremendous decline in the value of this asset?

For a Few Dollars More

Next Monday, 8 September 2014, is carded for the Finance Minister to deliver his 2015 Budget Statement to the country and of course speculation is great as to whether this will be an ‘election budget‘ or if a more restrained approach might be taken.

In preparing to write this column, I took a look at our budgets since 2005 and it was really striking that many of the key issues identified a full decade ago are still at the fore of the more recent budgets. Some of those issues were the imperative to reduce our dependence on the energy sector; the constant push to upgrade our infrastructure; the demand for more resources dedicated to national security and of course, the repeated statements about this or that program to reduce white-collar crime.

These expenditure and revenue figures were drawn from the Budget Statements, so no account has been taken of either actual outcomes or supplemental appropriations – this is the process used by the Government to obtain authorisation from the Parliament to exceed the approved spending limits in the national budget.

Clearly, we are seeing a trend as to the constant increases in expenditure, with only one decline, in 2010. Given that background, it also appears that surpluses are rare, occurring only twice, in 2006 and 2009.

The reality that we are on the verge of a national election which is sure to be strongly-contested, leaves me in little doubt that the 2015 budget is also likely to be a deficit budget, with the State spending more than it earns.

The recent scandals at LifeSport, Eden Gardens, THA/BOLT, CAL, CL Financial and of course, the Beetham Water Recycling Project, all show the extent to which the Treasury is being targeted by well-connected parties.

There is a constant stream of allegations of ‘Grand Corruption’, which is little surprise in our society in which an unsupported allegation is so often used to discredit an opponent. There is no comfort to be had in that observation, since the other reality is that thorough investigations and prosecutions are only done against ones political enemies, inside or outside the ruling party. That is the sobering reality in our Republic, in which we should all enjoy equal rights and be held to common standards. Different strokes for different folks, just like back in the ‘bad-old-days‘.

It seems to me that the defining question, in terms of whether the various financial crimes are taken seriously, is whether the accused persons are ‘members in good standing‘, so to speak.

The extent to which our Treasury is protected from being plundered by criminal elements is a serious question which should concern every citizen, given that the Public Money in the Treasury belongs to us as citizens and taxpayers. The frequency with which these financial crimes are overlooked is nothing less than scandalous, as any of the Auditor General’s Reports in the previous decade would attest. Permanent Secretaries approving payments in breach of financial regulations; payments made with no documents (leases, contracts or agreements) on file; failure or refusal to produce documents as required by law upon the Auditor General’s request and so many other types of lawbreaking. The same types of conduct is also rife in State Enterprises, which is why so many of the larger ones are unable to produce accounts as required by the very Ministry of Finance which sets those rules and continues to fund them.

The wicked part is that these Public Officials are virtually never charged with breaking the law or made to face any other serious consequences for their misbehaviour in Public Office. We need a new beginning in terms of how we handle the reality of our country’s wealth and its intentionally-degraded laws for controlling how our Public Money is used. A big part of that would be a political dispensation in which full investigations and prosecutions were the norm, especially when key members of the ruling party are the target of allegations.

Our budgeting process now shows all the signs that our system of Public Financial Management is ineffective in dealing with the seasoned criminals who are hard at work helping themselves to our money, whatever the political party in power. At that level, at least, there is little evidence of discrimination.

The growing complexity of the budget is of no comfort. For example, the 2014 documents totalled some 2,997 pages, yet the Billion-Dollar-Plus Beetham Water Recycling Project (BWRP) was omitted. Despite questions as to what did he know and when did he know it, the Minister of Finance continues to ignore the fundamental requirement to provide for this huge project within our national accounts. There has been no attempt to give the public the necessary explanation as to how the BWRP is to be paid for, since the underlying commercial arrangements which are driving this project remain obscured. The BWRP also shows a strong theme as to the privatisation of our nation’s water supplies, which is a growing area of concern globally. Not the first one, it is true, since we had DESALCOTT before, but this second, huge project implies a trend, in my mind.

The inescapable question is ‘To what extent can we rely on our national accounts, if huge projects like BWRP are omitted?‘

All of which brings us to the continuing and unexplained delay in passing the Public Procurement & Disposal of Public Property Bill. That new law would play an important part in greatly reducing the scope for waste and theft of Public Money. The JCC and its Kindred Associations in the Private Sector Civil Society group continue to call for this law to be passed without any further delay.

Of course all of this is driven by the political parties’ imperative to raise money from various financiers to fund election campaigns, so Political Party Financing laws are essential to control those influences. The Parliament recently unanimously approved a Private Members’ Motion laid by Independent Senator, Helen Drayton, to appoint a Joint Select Committee (JSC) to start the long-overdue process of agreeing just what are the new laws we need to deal with this influence, described by President Carmona, in his inaugural address as a ‘veritable juggernaut‘. The JCC continues to call for the JSC to be appointed so that this critical work can be started to control Political Party Financing.

Having observed the two-week spectacle of prolonged debate in the Parliament on the recently-approved Constitutional Amendment Bill, one can only wonder as to the priorities which are being displayed.

Hence my title – ‘For a Few Dollars More‘.

CL Financial bailout – Paying the Devil

paying the devil Today is the 30th of January 2014: five years since the State bailout of CL Financial was announced to a shocked nation and region. It is necessary to mark this moment in time with solid facts and stern meditation.

The Carnival season is upon us, so J’ouvert is near the front of my thoughts. J’ouvert is simple, yet tremendous, because of the experience of passing from night into daylight and of course those around you becoming clearer as the light overcomes the darkness. For me, the defining feature of Jouvert is the terrifying portrayals of ‘Devil mas‘ in its various forms – ugly and dirty, covered with mud, oil or paint; real noisy, beating pitch-oil tins and such; forceful, in demanding payment from you before you could pass. You have to pay the Devil to go away. Pay the Devil, so he could leave without dirtying you up.

The vast amount of detail which has emerged in the last five years, means that I can only focus on one key aspect of the CL Financial bailout scandal.

My main theme is that vast amounts of Public Money have been committed to repay the debts of CL Financial, while the chiefs who directed and controlled that conglomerate seem free to come and go as they please. Or, in the case of Duprey, who refused to testify at the Colman Commission, to go and refuse to come. Once again, Trinis in the running for some awards for innovation and so on, with Duprey being the world’s first ‘Penniless Philanthropist‘.

How much Public Money has been spent on this exercise? How much of that Public Money will the State recover? That is my focus.

When the Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 30th January 2009, it was on the basis that CL Financial assets would be sold to recover the Public Money being advanced, which was estimated to be about $5Bn.

Winston Dookeran’s first budget speech on 8th September 2010 was a critical turning-point, as it appeared to me that he was attempting to stem the flow of Public Money out of the Treasury. Dookeran made a case which was based on the huge and unprecedented liabilities facing the State at pg 9 –

“…The total funding provided as at May 2010 by the Government and the Central Bank, excluding indemnities and guarantees to First Citizens Bank amounted to approximately $7.3 billion. As of June 2010, CLICO and British American combined total liabilities were approximately $23.8 billion but total assets were $16.6 billion…” .

Immediately, in protest at Dookeran’s attempt to limit the cost to our Treasury, there were several ‘Policyholders’ and Depositors’ groups‘ formed. The word ‘Depositors’ was soon omitted when it was realised that it would not suit their purposes.

With Dookeran isolated and the government under mounting pressure from these new protest groups, there were new laws drafted to stifle the protestors’ legal options. At this point, we had the historic address to Parliament by the PM on 1st October 2010 – historic because even with the required majority of votes to pass the intended new laws, the PM chose to explain and persuade the public. The bailout was extended to Hindu Credit Union and the Commission of Enquiry was announced to find the causes of the collapse of the CL Financial group and HCU.

Most notable was the PM’s outrage at the mystery of the bailout – at pgs 25-26

“…The $5 Billion has been spent—we are advised—to repay matured EFPA policies in an ad hoc and unstructured manner where payment arrangements were entered into based on levels of funds invested. What criteria did you use to repay investors? Whom did you choose to pay? How were they chosen? These questions need to be answered. Because if it is today after the $7.3 Billion, all these EFPA people, the policy group and so on, they are out there, where is their money? Where is their money? Did you have a priority listing of who should be paid? Why did you go—and you are now crying crocodile tears about trade unions, credit unions, the poor man and the small man—why did you not pay them first? Why did you not pay them first? Where did that $7 Billion go? We need those answers, Mr. Speaker. We deserve those answers. The taxpayers need to know. Because when a parent has to buy school books and bags to send his/her children to school but they have to pay tax out of the little money, they need to know where that money has gone…Where, how and why; we need to know…”

In September 2011 Parliament approved a new law authorising the State to borrow an additional $10.7 Billion to fund the bailout.

Winston Dookeran’s affidavit of 3rd April 2012 specifies that $24 Billion of Public Money is committed to the bailout, at paras 21 & 22…

Para 21         (a)      $5.0Bn already provided to CLICO;
                (b)      $7.0Bn paid to holders of the EFPA and
Para 22                  $12.0Bn estimated as further funding to be advanced.

Recent estimates have now risen to ‘$25b and counting‘ according to the Sunday Express report of 4th May 2013. Given the shock with which the estimated bailout cost of $5 Billion was received a mere five years ago, it is sobering that $25 Billion can now be bandied-about by Public Officials in this fashion.

Will our money ever be repaid? If so, how and when?

Now and again, official statements are made to assure the public that the matter is being resolved and the CL Financial Shareholders Agreement is extended for this reason or that. There is an appearance of diligence and purpose, but there are also other statements which we must consider.

Finance Minister Howai is recorded in Hansard of 30th January 2013, speaking about the CL Financial bailout – at pgs 16-17

“…Mr. President, we shall never recover all the funds that have been put into the group, but our focus is to try and maximize what we can and to reduce the borrowing that we need to do…”.

Even more concerning is that there has been secretive disposal of assets of the CL Financial group – to cite one example, Valpark Shopping Plaza was recently sold to Courts, without any public advertisement.

All the while, the State is mounting strong resistance to my lawsuit to force publication of the details of this bailout. The secrecy is inimical to the wider public interest, which is being sacrificed for the comfort and benefit of the ruthless few.

Every single established mechanism for oversight, transparency and accountability in public affairs has been sidelined in this sordid CL Financial scandal. Integrity in Public Life Act – nothing. Audited Accounts – not available. Freedom of Information Act – legally disputed. Briefing to Parliament – exempted.

Ask yourself – “Would you trust a public official with $1M to spend if there were no requirement for them to account properly?” If not, why should we trust any public official or institution with the authority to spend 24,000 million dollars with no oversight or accounting.

Hence my title – we really Paying the Devil.

cl-bailout-timeline

AUDIO: Heritage Radio Interview: Treasury Scandal – 27 August 2013

Afra Raymond chats with Joseph Berment-McDowall on Heritage Radio 101.7 FM about the Treasury Scandal article. 27 August 2013. Audio courtesy Heritage Radio 101.7 FM

Programme Date: Tuesday, 27 August 2013
Programme Length: 1:21:45

The Treasury Scandal

I wonder if is Bobol?
What dey doing with Taxpayer’s Money at all!?
I wonder if is Bobol?
What dey doing with Taxpayer’s Money at all!?
—Opening stanza of ‘The Treasury Scandal’ by Atilla the Hun (1937)

I took this title from the late 1930’s kaiso by the great Atilla the Hun (Raymond Quevado) on the scandal of some $200,000 missing from T&T’s Treasury. His outrage was rooted in the fact that the story came-out in bits and pieces and of course, none of the ‘Big-Boys’ was ever jailed, or even charged for that theft. That was a massive amount of money in the 1930s – at that time a good Woodbrook house cost about $6,000 – so that could give you an idea. Atilla was lamenting the lack of accountability and transparency in how Public Money was being managed. The ‘Treasury Scandal’ was a true episode from the bad-old-colonial-days of the 1930s, but of course we have progressed a great deal since then, having achieved Independence, Republican status and universal education.

dookeran-portrait — Winston Dookeran, MP

The problem is that despite the obvious movement forward, we are witness to yet another ‘Treasury Scandal’. I am referring to the CL Financial bailout, announced in January 2009 and still ongoing at an anticipated cost of $24Bn – according to paras 21 and 22 of the 3 April 2012 affidavit of then Finance Minister, Winston Dookeran.

It is vital to look back before we go forward. In 2008 and 2009, the Indo-Trinbago Equality Council (ITEC) campaigned strongly on the issue of the Secret Scholarship Scandal’. The suspicion was that there was a secret scholarship fund operated by the State without any transparency and ITEC used its Parliamentary representatives and the Freedom of Information Act to force the Patrick Manning-led PNM administration to publish the details they had been trying to conceal.

The published details included the names of those who benefited from the funds as well as the amounts, dates of payments and details of the courses of study to be pursued. Some of the more controversial issues to emerge from the publication of those scholarship details were –
devant-anand

From the names given, it seemed that less than 10% of the recipients were citizens of East Indian descent;
The PNM administration was never able to demonstrate how those scholarships had been advertised, or for that matter, any objective process used to choose from the applicants;
Unlike other Scholarship arrangements, there was no requirement for these scholarship winners to do any kind of national service;
A number of people who were reported to have received money, went public to say they had never even applied for, far less received, scholarships. The question arising was ‘Where did that money really go?’;

A total of $46M of Public Money was paid during the 5 year period under examination. The President of ITEC at that time was Devant Maharaj and its leading attorney was Anand Ramlogan, both of whom now serve in the Cabinet.

I fully supported ITEC in that use of the Freedom of Information Act to force publication of important information on the use of Public Money, which is the property of every citizen.

In my view the failure and or refusal to account for the colossal and unprecedented expense of the CL Financial bailout is indicative of a ‘Quiet Coup‘ against our Republic. I am deliberately borrowing Simon Johnson’s potent phrase, used to describe the coup of Financial Capital against the USA published in a fascinating and essential article from The Atlantic. The fact that two successive administrations have remained bound to these arrangements and the low priority given to transparency and accountability in this matter all speak to the potency of the plotters.

“Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders… As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise.”
—Simon Johnson. “The Quiet Coup” in The Atlantic. 2009.

The CL Financial group was able to use its considerable political clout and financial footprint to achieve a binding agreement that our Treasury would be used to pay its debts. Absolutely unprecedented and all negotiated in less than three weeks, we are told. That is the official version of this astonishing story.

Given the likely existence of a ‘Code of Silence’ in this tangled affair, I have been making use of the Freedom of Information Act in my campaign for transparency and accountability in the CL Financial bailout.

If we are ever to start to untangle this web of deceit and betrayal, we must get details of who got their money out, how much, on what terms and when. On 8 May 2012, I applied to the Ministry of Finance via the FoIA – from which the Central Bank is exempt – to request this information –

SIDEBAR: “Cabinet approves Clico plan” courtesy Newsday

Read the Newsday’s laconic report on this matter here.

Accounts – The audited accounts for the CLF group or whatever figures the Minister is relying on;
The briefing given to the Independent Senators in September 2011 before debate of the two supplementary bailout Bills;
Details of the creditors, especially EFPA holders, to see who got what money;
Whether the Minister required CLF’s Directors to comply with the Integrity in Public Life Act.

The Ministry replied on 14 August to say that the information requested is likely to be exempt and I am now challenging them in Court.

If it is right and proper to use the FoIA to force publication of the details of a Secret Scholarship Scheme of some $46M over 5 years, why is it acceptable to conceal the details of some $24Bn in Public Money? That is over 521 times more Public Money being spent in secret…yes, $24Bn is over 521 times more money than $46M.

For all we know, some of the people on the Ministry’s list of persons who have been paid could be the same ones protesting via the various Policyholders’ Groups.

To quote Cabinet Minister Devant Maharaj in October 2011, as part of the ongoing campaign on the Secret Scholarship Scandal:

Maharaj said yesterday that he rejected Williams’ claim thatthen prime minister Patrick Manning’s handwritten note on one of the applications for the matter to be handled quietly was ministry protocol, as was claimed by Yuille-Williams. “It seems as if this was the overriding motto for the disbursement of these funds,” Maharaj added. “This was a blatant attempt to hide the facts from the glare of public scrutiny.”

At this time the Ministry of Finance is publicising the end of the CL Financial bailout so that all the Public Money spent on this can be repaid and there are various official reports of how this is to be achieved. At the very same moment, the said Finance Ministry has engaged a high-powered and expensive legal team, headed by Russell Martineau SC, to oppose my attempts to have the basic information published.

That is today’s Treasury Scandal.

Did CMMB collapse or not?

The headline was an arresting one – ‘Investment pros set up new business‘ at page 10 of the Business Guardian of 9th December. It was reported that a new investment house, KSBM, was launched and it seemed that they were profiling.

Given that all four of KSBM’s Executive Directors are ex-CMMB chiefs, there is an inescapable question… ‘Did CMMB collapse, or did they not?‘

Our society’s level of development will be limited by our capacity to reason and learn from that reasoning. The Code of Silence must be destroyed if we are to progress. It is necessary to probe this question most soberly and this is my attempt.

As is my practice, I am proceeding from the published record –

If we refer to the MoU signed on 30th January 2009 there are only two references to CMMB, in which, at clauses 1 c) and 6 b), the CL Financial group agrees to sell its shares in CMMB, along with a list of other assets.

Also at CNews of 30th January 2009

…Today, the Government, the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, and First Citizens Bank (FCB) became part of a bail-out package for CLICO Investment Bank, CLICO and British American Insurance and Caribbean Money Market Brokers (CMMB)…

The Governor’s statement made that day goes a little further, by referring to the transfer of third-party assets and liabilities of CIB and CMMB to First Citizens’ Bank.

The third reference to CMMB was at the first press conference held by the Central Bank Governor on this matter, 13th March 2009, his opening sentence was:

…This is the first in a series of media conferences that the Central Bank intends to schedule to update the national community about progress with respect to resolving the financial difficulties in CLICO, CIB and CMMB…

It is reasonable to ask why it became necessary to transfer CMMB’s third-party assets and liabilities (which would have included depositors) to another financial institution. More to the point, it would seem from the events that only a State-owned financial institution was willing to partake. In my view, if CMMB were healthy and whole, it would never have been even mentioned in all of this.

But, wait, there were conditions –

The fourth reference of course was the revelation that the previous administration had created a $1.8Bn guarantee to cover CMMB’s advances to its parent company, CL Financial. First Citizen’s Bank had made that guarantee a condition of its acquiring CMMB.

On 1st October, 2010, which was the fateful Friday on which our Prime Minister discussed the CL Financial matter at length in Parliament, First Citizen’s Bank wrote to the Minister of Finance to get confirmation that that guarantee was properly in place.

According to a report in Newsday of October 2nd 2010 – see – under the headline: ‘First Citizens: Honour $1.8B CMMB deal‘

Larry Howai, First Citizens CEO

…First Citizens Bank CEO Larry Howai yesterday confirmed the bank’s request and revealed that it was made in relation to the bank’s acquisition of Caribbean Money Market Brokers (CMMB) under the terms of a supplemental agreement drawn up subsequent to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of January 30, 2009. CMMB had racked up a substantial debt due to loans to parent company CL Financial.

“What happened is when we acquired CMMB, CMMB was owed money by the CL Financial Group,” Howai said. “We had told the government at the time that we would only acquire CMMB if they guaranteed the debts…

It seems to me that the guarantee First Citizen’s Bank was confirming had been made in conditions of great privacy, for it was the first time I was reading about it. A Supplemental Agreement to the published MoU – one can only wonder when that is to be published.

Finally, the Terms of Reference of the Colman Commission were specified as

…The terms of reference of the Commission of Enquiry include looking into the causes, reasons, and circumstances leading to the deterioration of the financial conditions at CLICO, CLICO Investment Bank Ltd, British American Insurance Company (Trinidad) Ltd and Caribbean Money Market Brokers and HCU which threatened the interest of depositors, investors, policyholders, creditors and shareholders and the circumstances, factors, causes and reasons leading to the January 2009 intervention by the Government for the rehabilitation of the companies…

Some other views have been put to me, most notably by the editor of a leading newspaper, to challenge my assertions on CMMB, so one needs to go further.

Yes, it is now time to consider First Citizens’ Bank’s (FCB) 2009 Annual Report.

As to the post-bailout events, I am considering page 77 of FCB’s 2009 annual report and Note 1 to the accounts ‘General Information’ is giving me pause – the relevant paras are cited –

…The CMMB Group comprises CMMB Limited, CMMB Trincity and CMMB Barbados…Effective 2 February, 2009, the Bank assumed control of CMMB Securities and Asset Management Limited (CSAM)…

The meaning of that series of statements is unclear to me…FCB assumed control of the CMMB Group (which we are told has 3 parts) on 2nd February 2009. Ditto for CMMB Securities and Asset Management (CSAM)…is that part of the CMMB group or not? I am not at all clear on what, if any, is the difference in these companies.

But, apart from that note, the real meat of the matter is found at Note 39 on page 131 – ‘Business Combination’ – the opening para of which, in reference to CMMB, reads –

…The acquired business contributed revenues of $369.9 million and net profit of $91.9 million to the group for the period from 2 February 2009 to 30 September 2009…

The acquired business is obviously CMMB and that profit rate, at just about 25% of turnover, is below FCB’s overall 45.5% profit rate disclosed at page 73, in the Consolidated Income Statement.

The CSAM performance, disclosed on the next page of the same note, is less impressive –

…The acquired business contributed revenues of $3 million and net loss of $0.16 million to the group…

But the body of that Note is contained in its details of Net Asset Values, to quote –

…The details of the fair value of the assets acquired and arising from the acquisition are as follows…

The Fair Value of Net Assets for the two acquisitions is disclosed as being:

CMMB Fair Value	CMMB Carrying Value	CSAM Fair Value	CSAM Carrying Value
($187,444,000)	$74,949,000	$14,219,000	($14,218,000)

I abbreviated the table to show its headings and totals only.

Fair Value is the estimated market value of the assets and liabilities, with an adjustment for any ‘special purchaser’ advantages or disadvantages.
Carrying Value is what used to be called ‘Book Value’ – i.e. acquisition cost less any depreciation.

The largest negative entry in that accounting is Other Funding Instruments, disclosed at $5.464Bn. What were these?

Point being, that, even if we ‘net-off’ the two companies, these figures disclose a negative Net Asset Value of about $173M.

More to the point – which was CMMB’s state at the date of the bailout – the table in Note 39 also discloses CMMB’s cash and cash equivalents to be NIL at the time of the bailout. CSAM’s are disclosed to have been about $7.3M.

Here I am trying to make sense of a statement in the ‘Director’s Report for the year ending 30th September 2009’, at ‘Results and Dividends – see at page 18.

….The Group’s total assets were $27.8 billion as at the end of September, 2009 up $11.9 billion or 75%. This increase was mainly as a result of the acquisition of CMMB which accounted for just over $7.6 billion of the Group’s total assets…

I am unable to reconcile the contents of Note 39, which specify a negative Net Asset Value of at least $173M, with this statement as to the additional $7.6Bn in total assets.

The conflict in the narrative is evident even in the very CEO’s statement –

At page 13, we read –

…During the year, the most significant event for the Group was the acquisition of Caribbean Money Market Brokers (CMMB), the largest brokerage house in Trinidad and Tobago. The acquisition contributed to growth in assets, profits and funding…

Then, at page 14…

…we were called upon by the Central Bank to assist with the payments to depositors of CLICO Investment Bank (CIB) and to acquire CMMB, both of whose customers were seriously affected by the necessary interventions made by the authorities to stabilize the system…

How were the CMMB customers ‘seriously affected by the necessary interventions’?

Nothing in FCB’s 2009 Annual Report leads me to doubt my original conclusion as to CMMB’s collapse. I am sure more details will emerge during the Colman Commission, the Terms of Reference for which were again requested from the AG’s office this week.

But in fact more details emerge in the Business Guardian column of 16th December ‘First Citizens profits from Duprey’s CMMB‘. Two quotes from the First Citizens CEO will suffice –

“As far as First Citizens chief executive officer, Larry Howai, is concerned, the bank and the government together saved CMMB – ‘They would not have been able to continue in business much longer’”

“CMMB had serious impairment of between $1.6 and $1.8billion which would have had to to have been written off or provided for in some other way”

It would really be refreshing to have one of those CMMB chiefs (Ram Ramesh or Robert Mayers, maybe?) assist us in gaining a clearer picture of the events.

In summary, we have CMMB

reportedly with NIL cash balances as at the bailout
reportedly with a negative Net Asset Value
with its customers stated to be ‘seriously affected’
acquired by the State-owned bank
The terms of which acquisition include a secret guarantee for $1.8BN of presumably irrecoverable advances to its parent company
The subject of the oncoming Colman Commission

The big question for me is how come the chiefs of CMMB, a financial institution which is known to have failed on this scale, can be permitted to open another one? We are acting as if we have no capacity to learn from our errors. Just carrying on as though nothing happened. What is the role of the SEC and the Central Bank in all this? Have we learned nothing?

I certainly hope that my colleagues in the press are going to be as insistent and detailed on this matter as the circumstances demand.

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