Rapheal John-Lall

Pe­ter Per­me­ll, chair­man of the Cli­co Pol­i­cy­hold­ers Group, said for­mer di­rec­tors of Cli­co should be paid on­ly when the re­sults of the Sir An­tho­ny Col­man Com­mis­sion of En­quiry have been re­viewed.

"We are call­ing on the Min­ster of Fi­nance to halt these pay­ments and for those who were paid to re­turn the mon­ey if they got paid and their names have not been cleared as yet. Those di­rec­tors would have had a fidu­cia­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the com­pa­ny and there­fore the col­lapse of Cli­co clear­ly shows that that fidu­cia­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty was not clear­ly car­ried out," he told the T&T Guardian.

"There are ques­tion marks over the heads of the di­rec­tors over the col­lapse. Un­less the Col­man Re­port comes back and says there are spe­cif­ic di­rec­tors they have is­sues with and there are oth­ers there are no prob­lems with, on­ly then should di­rec­tors con­sid­er them­selves cleared."

The en­quiry in­to Cli­co and the Hin­du Cred­it Union (HCU) be­gan in 2010 and last year Col­man pre­sent­ed the re­sults of the HCU en­quiry to Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona. How­ev­er, the Cli­co part of the re­port is still be­ing worked on and has not yet been sub­mit­ted.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, more than $36.1 mil­lion has al­ready been paid out to for­mer Cli­co di­rec­tors. Those pay­ments were processed be­tween April 30 and June 2 and rep­re­sent half of what the ex di­rec­tors are en­ti­tled to. It was paid out at ac­crued rates rang­ing be­tween two to 12 per cent.

On Wednes­day, the Cli­co Pol­i­cy­hold­ers Group ex­pressed con­cern at re­ports that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai and the Gov­ern­ment ap­peared to be un­aware or un­cer­tain as to whether pay­ments had been made to the for­mer Cli­co di­rec­tors.

The Cen­tral Bank has said that Lawrence Duprey, for­mer CEO of the CL fi­nan­cial Group, for­mer group fi­nan­cial di­rec­tor An­dre Mon­teil and Gi­ta Sakal, for­mer cor­po­rate sec­re­tary will not be paid un­der the terms of the 2015 Cli­co Res­o­lu­tion Plan un­til civ­il mat­ters filed against them are com­plet­ed.

Per­me­ll said oth­er Cli­co di­rec­tors should not be tak­ing any mon­ey un­til the en­tire mat­ter is cleared up.

"In the same way I am ask­ing the Cen­tral Bank not to pay, I am ask­ing the di­rec­tors not to col­lect. It works both ways," he said.