“No funding has been made available to date and consequently, the judicial manager has no alternative but to act on its August 25, 2014 recommendation to move towards liquidation.”
That was the final sentence of a three-paragraph statement issued Wednesday evening by the judicial managers of CLICO International Life Insurance Limited, Deloitte, signalling what could be the beginning of the end of a heart-breaking story for thousands of policyholders in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.
There can be no doubt that the release of the statement significantly raised the tempers of many of those policyholders, while at the same time dashing any hopes that they would have had something to smile about by the time this saga ended.
In fact, the almost instant and uncharacteristically caustic words of president of the Barbados Investors and Policyholders Alliance, June Fowler, condemning the Democratic Labour Party Government and its operatives for not keeping their word must have been echoed in thousands of households across the country yesterday.
Additionally, when Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, in response to a question from this newspaper declared that of immediate importance to him and his government would be what has become of the assurances given by the Government of Barbados, questions of our national credibility quickly come to the fore.
When the history of this Government is written, what is very certain is that the handling of the CLICO saga will not be included in the chapter titled “Its Greatest Hour”.
That having been said, however, the counter-statement issued yesterday afternoon by the Ministry of Finance suggests that officials of the ministry had been deeply engaged for some time in putting in place the structure that would allow for their commitment to the judicial managers and policyholders to be kept. We need therefore to ask why there was such a serious breakdown in communication to cause the kind of consternation policyholders would have suffered for the past 24 hours.
Yesterday Government reported: “The Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs wishes to advise that contrary to any impressions which may have been drawn from recent media reports, the Government of Barbados cannot under law transfer any financial resources directly to CLICO or the judicial managers from the Consolidated Fund.
“Such resources can and will be transferred to the new company for the management of its affairs and the execution of the proposed restructuring of CLICO once all of the necessary arrangements are in place.
“The judicial managers are fully apprised of this.”
If in fact the judicial managers were aware of this restriction by law, and of the steps being taken by Government to legally keep their commitment, why was that statement issued on Wednesday evening?
Did the judicial managers know that Government had already established a company and appointed its board, headed by financial analyst and former banker Clenell Goodman, and had given instructions to meet with the said judicial managers to set the wheels in motion for the restructuring plan approved by the Supreme Court to take shape?
One of the greatest fears of policyholders at this time must be that the market value of the assets of CLICO International Life at 2014 would certainly not come close to covering the liabilities to creditors, and their position way down on the chain of entities to be satisfied out of the proceeds of any sale would leave them most vulnerable.
These people have been through far too much and should not have had to endure the misery of the 24 hours between the two statements.
Both sides owe it to the policyholders and the country to see that this matter is better handled from this day forward.
