Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Hin­du Cred­it Union (HCU) boss, Har­ry Harnar­ine, says he un­der­stands that share­hold­ers are suf­fer­ing for their mon­ey, and that he has to op­er­ate in the in­ter­est of all. He was adress­ing close to 100 share­hold­ers of the fi­nan­cial­ly-strapped cred­it union who packed the new­ly-opened Ra­j­moshi restau­rant and con­ve­nience store in Ch­agua­nas, yes­ter­day. Speak­ing to the mixed age group, Harnar­ine said: "I want you all to un­der­stand that a year may sound long...Peo­ple are suf­fer­ing for their mon­ey.

"I un­der­stand all that, but at the same time I have to con­tin­ue to op­er­ate in the in­ter­est of all, and not some, and that is to say the in­ter­est of all is bet­ter served in fight­ing the liq­uida­tor, be­cause if we al­low the liq­ui­da­tion of the cred­it union's as­sets and the com­pa­nies' as­sets, what will even­tu­al­ly hap­pen is that peo­ple may get 20 and 35 cents on the dol­lar."

The meet­ing was held to brief share­hold­ers and de­pos­i­tors about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion of the HCU. Harnar­ine said: "The sit­u­a­tion at this point in time is that we have three ma­jor court mat­ters."

So far, in one of the mat­ters, "we were able to get a stay of the liq­ui­da­tion of the as­sets of the HCU and the HCU Fi­nan­cial Group of Com­pa­nies. "They have al­so agreed at case man­age­ment lev­el that the HCU Fi­nan­cial Group of Com­pa­nies is not in liq­ui­da­tion and there­fore, the HCU Fi­nan­cial board can re­sume op­er­a­tions of all the com­pa­nies un­der the HCU Fi­nan­cial Group." See­ing it as an achieve­ment, Harnar­ine told the gath­er­ing that "that in it­self was a very suc­cess­ful po­si­tion for you all as share­hold­ers, be­cause of the fact that when the liq­uida­tor took over, he did not ob­serve the court or­der."

Re­ply­ing to his own ques­tion of what was the court or­der, he said it was that the Hin­du Cred­it Union Co-Op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety was in liq­ui­da­tion, which was sim­i­lar to the CL Fi­nan­cial Group. Ex­plain­ing his point, Harnar­ine said: "Cli­co and Cli­co In­vest­ment Bank, one was in liq­ui­da­tion and one was un­der man­age­ment, or clo­sure, as you will say. "But it did not af­fect Colfire; it did not af­fect Re­pub­lic Bank, it did not af­fect Health Net. "Sim­i­lar­ly, the court or­der on the ex parte in­junc­tion was in re­la­tion to the Hin­du Cred­it Union Co-op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety."

He said the Cen­tral Bank pre­vent­ed the liq­uida­tor from shut­ting down Bankers' In­sur­ance, which was a ful­ly-owned com­pa­ny of HCU. Ac­cord­ing to Harnar­ine, the in­sur­ance firm de­clared $17 mil­lion in prof­it dur­ing the last two to three weeks. He added that 92 per cent of it was owned by the HCU. On a lighter note, Harnar­ine said sev­er­al of the com­pa­nies which op­er­at­ed un­der the HCU Fi­nan­cial Group would re­open this week. "In terms of the com­pa­nies, we have de­cid­ed to take con­trol of the fol­low­ing com­pa­nies: HCU Au­to Care, In­sti­tute of High­er Learn­ing, and on Mon­day (to­mor­row) we are go­ing to re­open Sajee­wan Med­ical."

How­ev­er, he said those com­pa­nies would be re­opened at the head of­fice in Ch­agua­nas. An an­i­mat­ed Harnar­ine said the liq­uida­tor's ac­tion was il­le­gal, and that the judge did not have to rule. "They con­ced­ed when we went to court that what was done was wrong and they are now go­ing to hand over all pa­pers and doc­u­ments in re­la­tion to the HCU Fi­nan­cial Group of Com­pa­nies." The mat­ter would be heard in Oc­to­ber, when the High Court re­sumes, Harnar­ine said.