Don’t expect Prime Minister Freundel Stuart to offer any comment on the Deloitte Canada forensic audit into the operations of CLICO International Life Insurance until he sees a copy of the report.
Defending his position following his reported refusal to comment on the controversial forensic audit, Stuart raised the matter in the House of Assembly yesterday as he contributed to debate on the 2012-2013 Appropriations Bill.
The Prime Minister again said he would not respond to the report, exerpts of which have been carried in NATION publications.“If there is a report, I want to see it. Nobody is going to cull any paragraph that suits them either and ask me to comment on it,” he told the Lower House.
The St Michael South Member of Parliament said: “Let me read the report, see what is in it for myself and on the basis of the full report, draw my own conclusions – and that is my position.
“Long before I entered electoral politics, I practised law and I know how to take all those precautions.
“Those who are offended by my position can stay offended, but I am not – on the basis of what is published by this or that newspaper – going out there and pass judgment on anybody only to find that when I come into contact with the facts, I look more foolish than the person who may have made the initial publication.”
At the same time, Stuart said his position on the matter did not mean that he was not concerned about the CLICO issue, which has affected thousands of policyholders and investors in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.
The Prime Minister told his parliamentary colleagues that he was “not going to be coerced into putting my mouth in gear” before he had a chance to see the full document. (GE)
