PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Planning Minister Dr Bhoendradatt Tewarie has admitted that the financially troubled conglomerate CL Financial had provided substantial funds towards a number of educational institutions here but distanced himself from benefitting personally.
Testifying during the Commission of Enquiry into the collapse of CL Financial (CLF), the parent company of the Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO), Tewarie, who served as a non-executive member of the CL Financial board for 15 years, said the funds towards the educational institutions were “done as public good”.
But attorney Justin Phelps, who is representing former CL Financial corporate secretary Gita Sakal, challenged Tewarie, a former principal of the St. Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), that although he may not have been in receipt of compensation as a member of the CL Financial board, he received “personal benefits” because of his position.
Phelps reminded Tewarie that CL Financial had funded the Institute of Business (IOB) after “you took your seat on the CLF board” and that there was also an “endowment, of US$100,000 annually for three years”.
Tewarie, who also served as head of the IOB, confirmed the CL Financial investment in the institution, prompting Phelps to add “your institute benefitted from it (the endowment) and it also benefitted from other sponsorships and gifts from the CL Financial group”.
Tewarie told the lone Commissioner Sir Anthony Colman that when he was the UWI principal he “secured support from CL Financial” and that resulted in the visit of Nobel Prize author VS Naipaul, and American scientist Peter Senge.
He also disclosed that Republic Bank Ltd, in which CL Financial has a substantial stake, funded the construction of an $80 million (US$13.3 million) three-storey building at the St Augustine campus.
Former finance minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira is due to testify before the Commission today. (CMC)
