KINGSTOWN – St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves has repeated his call for Trinidad and Tobago to play a lead role in resolving the difficulties arising from the demise of insurance giants CLICO and British American.
“There are several reasons why the government of Trinidad and Tobago ought to be showing leadership in any regional strategy for British American and CLICO,” he said at a news conference.
“In the case of British American, the mind and management of British American is in Trinidad. British American and CLICO are subsidiaries of CL Financial, which was and is based in Trinidad. Moreover, CL Financial owes British American at least US$60 million.”
Gonsalves said that the CL Financial Group collapsed mainly because of poor decisions taken at the senior level.
“The collapse of CL Financial really is mainly due to the colossal failures of corporate governance; reckless and excessive risk taking by CL Financial in Trinidad.”
The Vincentian leader added that US$300 million was taken out of British American Insurance branches in the Eastern Caribbean and sent to Trinidad to be invested in speculative real estate transactions in Florida and elsewhere.
“I’m putting in the public domain, in a coherent way, things which I have put in bits and pieces as to why Trinidad ought to be in the lead,” Gonsalves said. (CMC)
