Confident David Thompson In Motion

In a manner that demonstrated full confidence in Government’s performance, Prime Minister David Thompson last night delivered a stinging criticism on the behaviour of Opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) in relation to errors of commission and of omission during its tenure in Government, specifically the former Minister of Finance and the former Minister of Economic Affairs.

Mr. Thompson was responding to charges in a Motion of No Confidence tabled by Opposition Leader, Mia Mottley. She had sought to have Parliament find the Prime Minister guilty of misleading the public on the soundness of CLICO Holdings Barbados, and of not acting promptly to ward off financial harm to investors and policyholders.

He described the Resolution as unnecessary, frivolous, vexatious, unfounded and childish.

Evidently concerned about the harm which irresponsible statements on the CLICO issue could do to that company and to the national economy, the PM said: “I wish from the outset to reiterate, for the benefit of the policyholders of CLICO International Life in Barbados, as well as the employees of CLICO subsidiaries, as well as persons who have made investments, whether in annuities or other forms of investment, that the Government of Barbados will do all in its power to promote their interests and their investments. We have said this from the outset.”

Mr. Thompson provided Parliament with details of prompt communications with his regional counterparts as well as with other Cabinet Ministers. Furthermore, a statement was crafted with the full knowledge and consent of the Governor of the Central Bank and the Supervisor of Insurance, to pass on pertinent information and thus calm any ears that might have arisen among interested parties in Barbados.

In that statement the Prime Minister gave the assurance to policyholders, employees and investors that the Government of Barbados would do everything in its power to ensure that their investments were safe.

To loud applause, he added: “The only entity to in Barbados that, in my view, could give comfort to policyholders, investors and employees would be the Government of Barbados. There is nothing higher than that; and there is no Government in the Caribbean that has yet given to their policyholders or to investors or to employees, any open-ended commitment as we did within a day of hearing what happened.

“We understood that confidence was critical, that any run on a financial institution would have an impact not only on that institution, but it would have an impact on all of the other domestic institutions in Barbados; that once you start to lose jobs and confidence it has a domino effect. That is why, with Four Seasons, with other projects, we’ve tried to step in wherever possible and, subject to the availability of resources, to protect jobs in this economy. I have not yet seen a statement, not even from the Government of Trinidad, that has given those assurances.

“I reject any assertion about the interference of the Minister of Finance in relation to this matter. The confidence of the system is built on the assurances and the word of the Government through the Ministry of Finance and nobody else…

“But there is no other country in the Caribbean in which the Opposition is as a irresponsible, as immature as the Opposition in Barbados jostling for attention … in fact, when you look across the world where economic collapse is taking place, I actually know of no other country in the world where people do not recognise the seriousness of the current financial challenges that we face and in which people are not seeking to bind together as one to solve those challenges.”

Source: barbadosadvocate.com

Motion ‘Frivolous And Vexatious’ – Freundel Stuart

The Barbados Labour Party (BLP) stands condemned and indicted for passing an Insurance Act that does not provide proper protection for policyholders and depositors.

That was the charge from Deputy Prime Minister, Attorney General and Minister of Home Affairs, Freundel Stuart, as he made his contribution to the no confidence debate in the Lower House yesterday morning. According to Stuart, penalties contained in the legislation as it relates to non-compliance with the statutory fund, are grossly inadequate.

“The Barbados Labour Party stands condemned, stands indicted and condemned on passing a piece of legislation in this Chamber, which really should be protecting the policyholders that the honourable member talks about, but has made no effective provision for their protection, just a slap on the wrist for any insurance company that fails to comply with section 25, so far as that section relates to the statutory fund,” he said.

“You hear in here today how important this fund is, and how critical it is to protect the interests of policyholders and depositors. But in the legislation passed in here in 1996, the penalty for not complying with the statute in relation to the statutory fund is on summary conviction, that is before a magistrate – not even a judge, before a magistrate – $2 500. That, Mr. Speaker, makes the point that there really is no distinction between a company representing 40 000 depositors or policyholders failing to comply with the statutory fund, and a vagrant in Bridgetown being caught with a spliff. They are both treated the same way, in fact the vagrant may be worse off, but such is the seriousness of politics in Barbados,” the Attorney General said.

Meanwhile, speaking specifically to the no confidence motion, which he described as “frivolous and vexatious”, Stuart said that despite the comments made by the Opposition Leader, Mia Mottley, his faith in CLICO and Prime Minister and Minister of Finance David Thompson remained intact.

“…For the last 25 years, I have been a practising lawyer in Barbados, having done quite a lot of work with CLICO, representing persons who suffered personal injuries and also representing the estate of deceased persons and never once in my entire professional experience in those 25 years, have I had any difficulty in having CLICO meet its obligations in the settlement of any claim at all. Never, never, never,” he maintained.

Stuart said that indeed CLICO had not met its statutory fund obligation, but that, he said, was a situation that his Government had inherited and had no hand in creating.

Source: barbadosadvocate.com

Mottley: Motion A Spur To Truth

Opposition Leader  Mia Mottley yesterday lambasted Prime Minister David Thompson for waiting until she had filed a no-confidence motion against him to start “telling Barbadians the truth”.

She told the Lower Chamber, while piloting debate on the motion, that the Prime Minister had only finally admitted the facts at his televised Press conference on Sunday – two days after she filed the motion – and it begged the question as to whether the Barbadian public would have ever been given details of [CLICO's] $93 million Statutory Fund deficit and other details if the motion had not been filed.

She said day-to-day management was required from the Minister of Finance and not a flurry of activity in response to a no-confidence motion.

Noting that in the last 36 days other countries in the Caribbean had acted with alacrity to deal with the CLICO crisis, Mottley said Thompson had only started to act in recent days.

Deficit

“All of a sudden, in six days we hear what the Statutory Fund deficit is. We hear there may be a Barbadian entity willing to buy . . .

“We hear only this morning, on the morning of this motion, that the chairman of the Insurance Corporation of Barbados Ltd (ICBL) says the talks between ICBL and CLICO are only exploratory. . .

“All of a sudden this week he’s appearing busy only because of the filing of this motion,” said the Opposition Leader.

She added that Parliament was only addressing the issue yesterday for the first time since it broke on January 31, not because Government brought it there but because the Opposition did.

Adding that the Statutory Fund deficit was too serious a matter not to be addressed, she also asked why there was no word on British American Insurance, a subsidiary of CL Financial in Trinidad, since its policyholders were similarly affected.

“That matter is critical because last week news was given of a proposed lawsuit against British American Insurance for US$39 million that could cause that company to be totally insolvent in relation to 6 000 acres . . . bought by the CLICO financial group in Florida,” she revealed.

Imposing presence

Mottley added that once the news had broken of CL Financial’s woes in Trinidad and Tobago, Thompson had said CL Financial had an imposing presence in the region and there were only three things he was worried about: the excessive transactions in Trinidad which increased contagion of risks, aggressively high interest rates, and very high debt that constrained the company from being able to sell its assets.

Noting that these underscored a broader culture of indiscipline compounded by high living, Mottley said such behaviour was mimicked in Barbados and led to an increasingly high deficit in the Statutory Fund.

She also pointed out that while the deficit was high before December 2007, it could have been supported in the past by a powerful parent company, CL Financial, but that was not the case now.

“That’s why we called since February 8 for the Minister of Finance to come clean and state the Statutory Fund deficit,” she said, adding that between February 8 and 21 nothing was revealed by Thompson, so she decided to tell the country of the $93 million deficit.

“He called me dangerous and reckless and tried to impugn another insurance company. Only last Sunday night did he finally admit what the facts were,” she stated.

“When we take the comments of the chairman of ICBL, when we take what we saw in the paper today, nothing short of a parliamentary oversight committee of both [houses of] Parliament is sufficient because I am suspicious and I am doubtful,” Mottley said.

Source: nationnews.com

• Mia No-Confidence Motion Against Thompson