Richard Lord

St Au­gus­tine MP Vas­ant Bharath has blamed Gov­ern­ment for the col­lapse of the Hin­du Cred­it Union (HCU).

Bharath made the claim while con­tribut­ing to yes­ter­day's House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives de­bate on a pri­vate mo­tion on the HCU. The is­sue was pre­sent­ed for de­bate yes­ter­day by Op­po­si­tion Leader, Bas­deo Pan­day. Bharath's com­ment was made af­ter he was asked by Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning if he was in fact sug­gest­ing that these peo­ple (HCU de­pos­i­tors) found them­selves in this un­for­tu­nate po­si­tion, as a re­sult of the ac­tions of the Gov­ern­ment.

He then elab­o­rat­ed by say­ing the HCU mem­bers de­posit­ed their mon­ey in the in­sti­tu­tion be­cause they be­lieved in the sys­tem. He said the thou­sands of HCU de­pos­i­tors were un­der the im­pres­sion there was prop­er leg­is­la­tion in place, prop­er over­sight mech­a­nisms, so the Gov­ern­ment was at fault be­cause they ne­glect­ed to do that. He lat­er said Gov­ern­ment did have a sys­tem in place, but it was not for the poor peo­ple, but for the wealthy. An Op­po­si­tion MP was heard shout­ing the name of Ude­cott Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man Calder Hart. Bharath said Gov­ern­ment had dis­crim­i­nat­ed against the de­pos­i­tors of the HCU. He claimed CL Fi­nan­cial was giv­en pref­er­en­tial treat­ment while the HCU was left on its own.