When Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard finally decides to break his silence and address the observations made by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, Attorney General Reginald Armour and Chief Justice Ivor Archie, one of the matters he must address is the collapse of the CL Financial empire, and in particular its crown jewel, CLICO.
As many adult residents of this country know, CLICO was founded by Cyril Duprey and Cyril Monsanto and was the first locally-owned insurance company incorporated in Trinidad and Tobago. It began operations on June 1, 1937, and grew to become the largest insurance company in the region.
The company collapsed on January 30, 2009, and was later put under the day-to-day control of the Central Bank, in accordance with Section 44D of the Central Bank Act.
In November 2010, a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) was set up to probe the failure of CL Financial Ltd, CLICO, Clico Investment Bank Ltd (CIB), British American Insurance Company (Trinidad) Ltd (BAT) and CMMB.
That CoI had as its sole commissioner, Sir Anthony Colman, an eminent English jurist. Most of the hearings into the matters involving the collapse of CLICO were not only heard in public, but were televised, such was the interest of the public (and in particular the tens of thousands of CLICO policyholders) in calling to account those who caused the company’s failure.
In the fourth quarter of 2012, there was a terse exchange of correspondence between Mr Gaspard and Mr Colman over the DPP’s request of the Commissioner “to cease to conduct the inquiry in public and with full media access, as that would be contrary to the public interest.”
One of Mr Gaspard’s several letters on this matter advised that “the police had commenced a full criminal investigation into the conduct of individuals and corporate entities involved in the collapse of Clico and related companies.”
To his credit, Commissioner Colman rejected the DPP’s entreaties, as by then he had, no doubt, been apprised of the extent of the national interest in this matter.
In a statement to Parliament on July 1, 2016, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley revealed that the total cost to the taxpayers, of the Commissioner and attorneys retained to assist the Commission, was $78.48 million.
Dr Rowley also disclosed a still-sealed electronic copy of the Report of the Colman Commission had been hand-delivered to the DPP because “a number of adverse findings of criminal misconduct of a kleptocratic nature were found and recommendations made which would be for the DPP to consider.”
In a statement to Parliament on July 2, 2021, then-AG Faris Al-Rawi revealed that the professional services firm Deloitte&Touche had been paid $181 million for the period 2012 to 2021 for “legal and forensic services” pertaining to the conduct of the police investigation into CLICO, CIB, BAT and CL Financial matter. The former AG also disclosed there was an outstanding bill of almost $24 million owed to Deloitte&Touche.
The point is the Government expended tens of millions of dollars for the CoI, hundreds of millions for “legal and forensic services” and hundreds of millions retaining attorneys to represent the State’s interest.
As the T&T citizen responsible for prosecuting citizens for wrongdoing, can Mr Gaspard please inform T&T what has become of the Colman CoI report.
