Category: Letters to the editor

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Information which was challenged in column came from Insurance Commissioner’s office

The tone of the March 3 letter of Commissioner of Insurance Maria Van Beek seems to suggest that she is reacting to the pressure from several quarters over her supervision of Clico. To accuse sections of the victims of the worst insurance failure in the country under her watch of making “reckless, uninformed and irresponsible pronouncements” (GINA release published March 1) might seem to indicate that Ms Van Beek is reluctant to acknowledge the scale of the problem or the extent of public concerns about potential personal and national losses of billions of dollars. Even if the government gives a complete bailout of Clico it is we the taxpayers who will pay it, while those who contributed to the crisis lecture us on how much they have done to protect us.

A number of persons have suggested to me that I should respond to the three issues she challenged me on: 1) the statutory fund/assets; 2) her reason for the approach to the court for a winding up of Clico; and 3) the name of the company, Clico.

1. I never claim to be an expert on insurance, accounting or indeed on any subject. However Ms Van Beek can rest assured that the provisions of the Insurance Act, including the difference between statutory assets and the statutory fund, would not escape any practising accountant. It is Ms Van Beek who has some explaining to do for apparently missing the assertion in Clico’s 2007 financial statements that the company had a “statutory fund” of $46 million and not the $9B she says it should be! As the expert and regulator of the sector, Ms Van Beek should tell the public what steps she took to have such an error in the audited financial statements rectified in a timely manner.

2. Ms Van Beek claims that I accused her of saying that it was Clico’s business model and investment strategy from which its problem stemmed. I did not invent that. Ms Van Beek said so in paragraph 10 of her affidavit. Ms Van Beek has insisted that it was the decision by The Bahamas authority to liquidate their Clico that triggered her move to the courts. It is not that decision which imperilled Clico Guyana’s investments.

Those unlawful and injudicious investments were impaired long before the move by The Bahamas authorities and required action, not excuse. But no, she waited until the property market in the US had collapsed taking with it huge amounts of Clico’s funds and then waited even further and longer on the Bahamian authorities.

3. Ms Van Beek writes that I wrote from an uninformed position concerning the name of the company. In her very affidavit she also refers to the company as SA!

In other words, everything Ms Van Beek accuses me of came out of her office.

Finally let me say that I welcome the press statement made by Ms Van Beek on the state of the company and note that she has taken several of the steps I advocated some weeks ago, including calling in the debts and guarantees of the related parties and giving specific advice to policyholders about the state of their insurance coverage. However she continues to repeat the vague promise she “attributes” to President Jagdeo that “no policyholder in Clico (Guyana) will lose their money.”

By now she should have sought written confirmation from the Minister of Finance to whom she reports, and not the President, of the precise nature and scope of the guarantee which in my view has to have parliamentary approval. Perhaps Stabroek News can clarify their report that Ms Van Beek “re-emphasised the assurances given by President Bharrat Jagdeo and Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh, that no one with investments in the company will lose their money.” That goes well beyond policyholders and was not contained in the statement issued to the press. It would however naturally raise the hopes of investors including the NIS. It would be painful if that assurance turns out to be false.

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Most of major issues were avoided

Dr Misir avoided most of the major issues raised by me in the exchange of letters I have had with him over the past couple of weeks, while my hint to him that he should be guided by Eleanor Roosevelt’s classic quote about ideas, events and people appears to have escaped him in his letter of February 17 (‘Excessive nitpicking,’ SN).

Dr Misir and his fellow team member Mr Kwame McCoy in particular, seem fascinated by my politics. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have no tale to tell of personal heroism, revolutionary activism or political association to whet the appetite of Dr Misir and his “huge team of… significant players,” all serving a political cause paid for by taxpayers which would make the Value-For-Money practitioner recoil in horror and despair. For the information of Dr Misir and Mr McCoy my major contact with the PNC of the PPP’s critical support days was having been part of the group including Lou Bone, Eddie Dewar, Valerie Holder, Clairmont Kirton and Freddie Kissoon whom Burnham had decreed should get no work from the state. At no time during the PNC regime was I ever employed by or received any work from the state. Indeed, during that period I was close to the WPA, NAACIE and FITUG – hardly associations that would appeal to the PNC. There were people, some now feeding at the trough of the PPP government, who were strongly pro-PNC or anti-PPP then. But those are personal choices for which each must be respectively responsible. I offer no judgmental view of them.

Since Dr Misir seems determined to avoid or devalue any discussion such as his citing Ms Gail Texeira’s “observations” in a newspaper article as his constitutional authority on the propriety of presidential actions; or using the excuse of the accomplice and joint offender (the Ministry of Finance) as justification for the misuse of the Lotto Funds by the President and improper accounting therefor by the Ministry of Finance; and since Dr Misir seems more interested in personalities than in facts, issues and shortcomings affecting our society, I consider that any further engagement or exchange with him will serve no useful purpose and will be an imposition on readers.

If, however, Dr Misir would like some real and serious discussion on such issues as the constitutional right to information, a long term economic strategy for the country, electocracy versus democracy, politicisation of the public sector and campaign financing reform, I am sure there are many who would like to engage him. The ball is now in his court – but then he claims to be a batsman, not a tennis player.

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Insurance Commissioner should be addressing the public on Clico

Ms. Maria van Beek expressed surprise (SN letter of February 14, 2009) at what she describes as Business Page’s unspecified “assertions and suppositions” (February 8, 2009) on the role of her Office in the Clico issue. She claims that I did not seek her comments on it. She is wrong on both counts.

What did Business Page say about her Office? That it has been silent on the Clico issue (fact then and now); that it is very important for her Office to ask the right questions and to get hard information from the company (vital then, more so now); that the responsibility for supervising Clico’s operations falls entirely under the Commissioner of Insurance (is she disputing that?); that her Office should have been far more proactive than it has been in this matter (is that not a given?) and that the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance simply does not have the resources to properly regulate the sector (fact, just visit her room at the Privatisation Unit in Barrack Street).

But let us set the records straight. When I returned to Guyana on Friday, February 6th, to begin our firm’s preparation for the Budget 2009, I drove straight to Ms. van Beek’s office hoping to meet her in connection with Clico. She was not in office but her secretary spoke to her in my presence. She did not however call me until days later, after the column on Clico had appeared. To say therefore that I did not seek her comments is misleading for someone who regulates an industry subject to the principle of “utmost good faith”. I even had to do some special arm-twisting to get a copy of the 2007 annual report of Clico for which I had to pay her Office $5,400, at the prohibitive charge of $100 per photocopied page.

Almost as if there is nothing unusual about the Clico issue, Ms. van Beek expressed satisfaction that insurance companies have been addressed in BP, adding that she hoped that “this examination of an insurance company’s financials is one of many more to come.” There is no room for banality when $7.5 billion of people’s money in Clico is invested in related parties owned by the CL Financial Group, Clico’s parent which is facing serious liquidity and other difficulties. But yes, Ms. van Beek, just send me the financials and I will review them. Her office should be doing the same and providing informed periodic reports for the benefit of the public.

Too many public bodies are more concerned with protecting their image than in carrying out their mandate. Now that the Governor of the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago is claiming that the situation with the Trinidad group is more serious than first thought, Ms. van Beek should be addressing the public on the substantive issue instead of making small and wrong points about Business Page.

I appreciate Ms. van Beek’s offer of assistance and will be writing her for information to do a follow-up to the February 8 article.

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The Integrity Commission is not a subject for spinning

Perhaps it is because in cricketing terms both Dr Prem Misir and Mr Kwame McKoy would be considered spinners of the pedigree of Ramadhin and Valentine; perhaps it is because they work at the same place, or that they write and think alike; or perhaps it is their knack for assigning a political party because they do not understand or practise independence, political or otherwise, but whatever it is, Dr Misir’s missive in the Stabroek News (February 3), repeated I believe in all the dailies, wishing me luck in my campaign in the 2011 elections surely extends their line about my political goals and plans. Dr Misir was even generous enough to wish me well, but then undermines his sincerity with the words, “I really mean it.” Or perhaps Dr Misir understands the need for such an attestation clause to add to his credibility. Whatever it is, I now make this public promise: If ever I decide to participate in the 2011 or the 2021 elections, which would be my preference, I will inform Dr Misir and Kwame first. After all they will, for their own purpose, publicise the news quickly and widely. And I really mean it!

In responding to the Business Page article on the Integrity Commission, Dr Misir made bold to say that the Integrity Commission exists with a functioning secretariat. What he did not tell us is how well it is functioning. Nor does he say that the secretariat as presently constituted cannot carry out its mandate under the Integrity Act, 1997. He does not say too that the commission, including the secretariat, has failed in routine administrative functions and that the commission and the commissioners have been derelict in their statutory duties. And that the commission has only an accounts clerk.

I can only wonder how Dr Misir can be so badly informed that he seems unaware of the rather uncomplimentary report done by external consultants Bradford and Associates, and that for over two years the accountable and self-appointed Minister, President Jagdeo, has been unable or unwilling to address the commission’s identified structural, organisational and operational deficiencies and the report’s recommendations, which this administration gave a commitment to the World Bank that it would implement. I am never sure whether the World Bank and the IMF are hopelessly spineless or dangerously gullible.

Dr Misir praises the President for sounding the alarm bell, which is the doctor’s euphemism for threatening a targeted group with prosecution. He does not say that the alarm came long into the still-born state of the commission and speculates on the President’s reasons for the timing of the chiming. Why he has to speculate given that he is the President’s spokesperson-in-chief is a bit of a mystery, every bit as surprising as penning his letter − apparently in his personal capacity. Perhaps it is because he described the episode started by the President as the “integrity thing.” But it is more than that; it is about possible criminal conduct, the rule of law, accountability and transparency. It is about how some politicians and “public servants” have come to acquire significant wealth on a bare state salary. It is about the kind of society and white collar criminality we as a society are prepared to tolerate. This is not something for spinning.

Some years ago when President Jagdeo appointed the wife of someone subsequently discredited to be a member of the Integrity Commission I wrote publicly that the commission itself needed a dose of integrity. I am now more convinced than then. As commissioners they need to be more virtuous than Caesar’s wife, ensuring that they comply with all the laws of the country and are scrupulously forthright about their compliance with all the country’s laws, including those relating to taxes.

But we need to fix more than the commission, which was part of the “integrity thing.” Imagine the President has not notified the commission of the resignation of Chairman George! Is this for real? We need to get the Office of the Ombudsman, the Procurement Commission and a proper Money Laundering Unit functioning. We need to free the Guyana Revenue Authority from political influence that may inhibit their zeal in going after the big-time tax evaders. We need proper campaign financing rules to free political parties from their secret and secretive donors.

We need an Office of the DPP which enjoys the total confidence of the public. And let us not forget, we need an Audit Office where the wife of a Minister does not hold a senior post.

It is time that we begin the serious and considerable work to be done; it is not a time to spin.

But back to Dr Misir’s letter. The letter jumps from me to the PNC, and then remembering what he had set out to do, ie respond to Business Page, he jumps right back to me in his closing paragraph. Perhaps Dr Misir was being too clever by half: accuse by association.

Finally, if Dr Misir wants to find out how a real Integrity Commission works I recommend that he consider what is happening with the Integrity Commission in Trinidad and Tobago.

If he does he will see that their Integrity Commission is enshrined in their constitution rather than a mere law; he will see the quality, qualification and background of its commissioners and the clout the commission has exercised in that country. In fact, just this past Thursday the entire commission comprising Chartered Accountant John C Martin, Chairman; retired Supreme Court Judge and former Chief Parliamentary Counsel Monica Barnes; Finance Consultant Peter Clarke and Chartered Accountant Vindar-Dean Mohammed, a full-time Member of the Tax Appeal Board resigned en bloc having been criticized by a judge. Their resignations took effect on submission to President Ellis.

Since I believe we have a duty to our fellow Guyanese to share knowledge and information, I am sending a copy of today’s (Friday) Trinidadian Guardian to Dr Misir. I hope he shares it with Kwame. And I really mean it!

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Israel’s intrusion into Gaza is a war crime

The final sentence in Roger Williams’ letter to SN (‘Israel’s action in Gaza is not a war crime,’ January 19) exemplifies the central theme of his quarrel with those of us who described Israel’s intrusion into Gaza as a war crime, the glorification of the Israeli war machine.  Are there some other dimensions, or hidden ideological agenda, to Mr Williams’ support for Israel’s cruel and inhuman attack on Gaza?

While ranting on a few issues in our letter Williams is strangely silent on other matters we raised, above all the overwhelming condemnation of the assault on Gaza by thousands upon thousands of Jews inside and outside of Israel. We limit ourselves to just two.

The first, a letter in the Irish Times signed by eight women and men describing themselves as “people in Ireland who are Jewish or of Jewish descent” made the following denunciation of the action by Israel and appeal for support for Jewish people opposing it:

“We are appalled by Israel ’s slaughter in Gaza. We have seen people justifying this on the basis of Israel’s ‘security concerns’ and attacking supporters of peace for being anti-Jewish. In this climate we feel it important to assert that it is not anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish to oppose Israel’s action. Nor, however, can it be part of any progressive political vision to conflate what the Israeli state has done and is doing in Gaza as being supported by Jews worldwide. Throughout the world, Jews have opposed the invasion of Gaza. In Israel itself, tens of thousands protested this war; they have been attacked by police and right-wing mobs and many Israelis, predominantly non-Jewish but also Jewish, have been imprisoned. We ask people to support these Israelis.

As for Israel’s security concerns, two points need to be made. Firstly nothing, but nothing, justifies the massacre of innocent people. Secondly, peace will only come about through justice for the Palestinian people and through negotiations between Israel and elected Palestinian representatives. One does not need to be Jewish to know this. We ask people not to claim to speak for us when justifying Israel’s barbarity.”

The second, a statement by British parliamentarian Sir Gerald Kaufman, made a connection at once deeply personal and political:

“My parents came to Britain as refugees from Poland. Most of their families were subsequently murdered by the Nazis in the holocaust. My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed.

“My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The current Israeli Government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians. The implication is that Jewish lives are precious, but the lives of Palestinians do not count.”

We would urge Mr Williams to go outside the narrow corridors of Israeli propaganda and learn the real truth about the historical and contemporary relationship of the Israeli state to the people of Palestine. Israel forcibly expelled the Palestinians in 1948 and this ethnic cleansing has continued past several United Nations resolutions all the way to last week in Gaza.

The omission of a human rights dimension in Mr Williams’ response is particularly striking and at odds not just with the letter writers he critiques but with the United Nations and Amnesty International as well as the Jewish women and men, a few of whom we quote above, and the hundreds of thousands who have been demonstrating all over North America and Europe. His view that Hamas is hiding among women and children is a pathetically weak defence of the slaughter of women and children in Gaza. The majority of reports strongly indicate that the Israeli army committed crimes against surrendering citizens whose homes were free of Hamas fighters. We now learn that on the basis of international opinion and public pressure, the state is investigating “five cases” of atrocities committed by the army and the dropping of phosphorus on civilians, including the United Nations headquarters.  A BBC report stated:

“The move follows numerous allegations by rights groups and in media reports that the army fired phosphorus shells where they could harm civilians. The UN said its headquarters were hit by three such shells causing a fire destroying much of its aid supplies. White phosphorus is legal for making smokescreens on a battlefield. The Israeli army says all its weapons in the Gaza offensive were entirely legal, but until now has refused to specify which weapons it used.  White phosphorus sticks to human skin and will burn right through to the bone, causing death or leaving survivors with painful wounds which are slow to heal. Its ingestion or inhalation can also be fatal.”

If Mr Williams consider these voices as external and for that reason unhelpful, what does he say about Israel’s own Supreme Court’s interpretation that the intentional targeting of civilians such as cadets graduating from a Gazan police academy, is in conflict with current international law?

Israel cannot continue to defy world opinion on the basis of protection by big interests and a media blanket at least in the United States. The international outpouring of condemnation and the facts on the ground fully justify our claims that the Israeli army has committed war crimes in Gaza.

Yours faithfully,
Andaiye, David Hinds, Rupert Roopnaraine, Karen de Souza, Wazir Mohamed, Denis Canterbury, Alissa Trotz, Nigel Westmaas, Eusi Kwayana, Chris Ram, Abbyssinian Carto, Moses Bhagwan