Mia after ‘justice’ for CLICO clients

OPPOSITION LEADER MIA MOTTLEY says she will not rest until justice is done for Barbadian policyholders and depositors in the ongoing CLICO Holdings Barbados Limited saga.On Sunday night at St Christopher’s Primary School, she told a large crowd of supporters that if fish vendors went to Oistins, Christ Church, or Cheapside, The City and plied their trade without the requisite licence, they would face the magistrates’ court in those jurisdictions.Speaking after the successful nomination of Wilfred Abrahams to run on a Barbados Labour Party ticket in Christ Church East in the next general election, Mottley said CLICO had publicly admitted it had sold business despite being barred from doing so by the Supervisor of Insurance. She said 2 300 people – not only 800 – had bought policies when CLICO had no legal authority to sell them, and therefore it should face the court for its actions.“This Government has a responsibility to protect its citizens, and part of that responsibility is first to guide the policyholders and the depositors. Secondly, it is to hold people responsible for wrongdoing,” she said, adding that CLICO did not get a phone call or a message with respect to the cessation of selling business, but got an order in writing from the Supervisor of Insurance under the Insurance Act.A file on the matter was last week submitted to the police for investigation.Mottley had a word of advice for policyholders, and stressed it was not a political stance but one they should undertake with dispatch in their own interest. She said Government had not been providing policyholders and depositors with the strongest possible defence and it was time they started to fight their own battle.She said that in other Caribbean territories, people had started to form societies for the protection of policyholders and had been meeting with the ministries of finance while going into the courts and seeking judicial management. She said if the Opposition started such a society, people would interpret it as a partisan political move. Therefore, she added, policyholders and depositors had to take the lead on the formation of such an organisation and the accompanying agitation.“There is no other option other than judicial management as a matter of urgency. You need to band yourself into an association,” she said.Mottley added that her early call last year for judicial management of CLICO had been vindicated. She explained that the Oversight Committee had no power, but if the insurance company had been placed under judicial management, no executive at the company could have taken money out of CLICO, whether bonus or deposits. (WG)