Gail Alexan­der

What­ev­er has to be done with re­cent pro­pos­als re­gard­ing Cli­co pol­i­cy­hold­ers can­not be a snap de­ci­sion, Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship press sec­re­tary Garvin Nicholas said yes­ter­day. "It is too im­por­tant an is­sue to make such a de­ci­sion in a snap but pol­i­cy­hold­ers can rest as­sured that Gov­ern­ment un­der­stands their anx­i­eties and con­cerns," Nicholas added. He was re­spond­ing fol­low­ing con­cerns on the Cli­co is­sue aired at a meet­ing of pol­i­cy­hold­ers called by the Cli­co Pol­i­cy­hold­ers Group (CPHG) on Sun­day. The CPHG has giv­en Gov­ern­ment a week to de­cide on the is­sue. One pro­pos­al the group has pre­sent­ed to Gov­ern­ment's min­is­te­r­i­al team calls for pay­ment of 40 per cent of what is owed to each pol­i­cy­hold­er.

An­oth­er pro­pos­al in­volved the Amer­i­can Ryan ALM group's sug­ges­tion to con­vert US$600 fund­ing to US Trea­sury Bills to max­imise cov­er­age of pay­ments. Head of the min­is­te­r­i­al team which met with the CPHG, Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath, said yes­ter­day he had sub­mit­ted a re­port on the pro­pos­als to Gov­ern­ment. He de­clined fur­ther com­ment. Nicholas said the pro­pos­als were all un­der ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion, "and Gov­ern­ment will be mov­ing on the is­sue. We re­alise it is an ex­treme­ly im­por­tant is­sue," Oth­er Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials were un­cer­tain if a de­ci­sion would be forth­com­ing at Thurs­day's Cab­i­net ses­sion. They al­so said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar may have to go to Bar­ba­dos this week to at­tend the fu­ner­al of late Bar­ba­di­an PM, David Thomp­son, who died on Sat­ur­day.

Yes­ter­day, Gov­ern­ment sources pre­sent­ed an­oth­er per­spec­tive on how pay­ments to the Cli­co groups could af­fect T&T. Sources said: "The 15,000 or so per­sons af­fect­ed by the Cli­co is­sue makes up less than one per cent of the pop­u­la­tion. "The tax­pay­ers who will be fund­ing any set­tle­ment com­prise 60 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion, so one per cent of T&T is ask­ing 60 per cent of the coun­try to shoul­der the bur­den af­ter they have fall­en in­to a po­si­tion stem­ming from an in­de­pen­dent in­vest­ment in a pri­vate com­pa­ny that went bust." How­ev­er, Pe­ter Per­me­ll deputy chair­man of the CPHG said yes­ter­day: "The sit­u­a­tion that no­body is ex­plain­ing is that tax­pay­ers will 'get back' re­turns if Gov­ern­ment bails out pol­i­cy­hold­ers since this step will give Gov­ern­ment ac­cess to Cli­co's valu­able as­sets which can then be sold or oth­er­wise dealt with.

"But Gov­ern­ment can­not ac­cess Cli­co's as­sets un­til they pay the com­pa­ny's li­a­bil­i­ties, that is, the mon­ey owed to pol­i­cy­hold­ers. "Once Gov­ern­ment pays this and can get hold of Cli­co's as­sets they can sell Methanol Hold­ings, for in­stance, or any oth­er as­set and fund the build­ing of as many bridges and roads as they want to...pol­i­cy­hold­ers are dealt with and tax­pay­ers are at ease." Per­me­ll who was re­quest­ed by the BBC to speak on the is­sue yes­ter­day said there were Cli­co in­vestors in the UK. He re­it­er­at­ed calls for Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Ewart Williams to break his si­lence on the is­sue or re­sign. "I'm not go­ing to stop–he has to go," Per­me­ll added.

While COP leader and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dook­er­an, who came in for flack from pol­i­cy­hold­ers at Sun­day's meet­ing, did not re­ply to cell­phone calls yes­ter­day, COP chair­man Joseph Toney re­spond­ed on the crit­i­cism. Dook­er­an's plan for pol­i­cy­hold­ers in the 2011 Bud­get has been re­ject­ed. At least one pol­i­cy­hold­er who cas­ti­gat­ed Dook­er­an on Sun­day said they had re­signed from the COP. COP's Toney said: "Why is Mr Dook­er­an be­ing made the vil­lain of the piece! The bud­get plan for Cli­co was mere­ly put for­ward." "It was a plan which was agreed to by the en­tire PP Cab­i­net and ap­proved by the Par­lia­ment in the bud­get. The Par­lia­ment com­pris­es the PP Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion PNM and every­one in that Par­lia­ment vot­ed in favour of the 2011 bud­get."

Toney added: "So why is Mr Dook­er­an be­ing made the scape­goat in the whole af­fair? Pol­i­tics is be­ing in­tro­duced in­to it and we have to be care­ful of those who are look­ing at an agen­da to bring down the PP." COP vice chair­man Ver­non de Li­ma added: "We're for­get­ting that the plan pre­sent­ed by Mr Dook­er­an was a col­lec­tive Cab­i­net de­ci­sion. "Win­ston was on­ly the mes­sen­ger. Why shoot him? This is go­ing to be the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the en­tire Gov­ern­ment. "I al­so hope the mat­ter is re­solved to every­one's ben­e­fit, I al­so have mon­ey in Cli­co and it's stalled."