Raymond gets info on Govt’s $20b Clico bailout

GOVERNMENT has disclosed that the financing cost, including interest, in the CL Financial bailout, plus payments to Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO), to be approximately $20 billion.

Ministry of Finance permanent secretary Vishnu Dhanpaul disclosed this in an affidavit filed on Monday in response to Afra Raymond’s judicial review lawsuit.

Raymond, a valuation surveyor and social activist, was granted leave in November by Justice Frank Seepersad to seek judicial review of the ministry’s refusal to provide details of the creditors and payments.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, Raymond wants the ministry to disclose identities of people paid in respect of Caribbean Money Market Brokers; British American Insurance Company; CL Financial; CLICO; and CLICO Investment Bank.

The matter came up for hearing yesterday before Seepersad in the San Fernando High Court.

Dhanpaul said in his affidavit that as permanent secretary, he has access to books, files and records of the Finance Ministry. He said he had told Raymond on August 17, 2018, that the interest and financing cost incurred in the bailout stood at $5,802,921,235.96.

Payments to CLICO by the Finance Ministry as of June 2018 stood at $15,855,458,958, he said, but nothing was paid to its subsidiaries. The sum of $1,637,387,140, was paid to British American. These payments stemmed from a memorandum of understanding between government and CL Financial, he added, to facilitate the bailout and were aimed at protecting the depositors, policyholders and creditors of British American and CLICO by capital injections. Sums paid to individual CLICO policyholders and depositors ranged between $1,000 and $109 million.

Attorney Deborah Peake SC, represented the ministry. Arguing the case for Raymond is attorney Kingsley Walesby.

The case was adjourned to February 20.