President Bharrat Jagdeo says he successfully lobbied with other Caricom Heads of Government to allow for $3 billion (US$15 million) to come from the regional Petroleum Fund to Guyana to assist in meeting the liabilities of the financially troubled insurance company CLICO.

This lobbying effort was made during the recent 5th Summit of the Americas which was held from April 17-19 in Trinidad and Tobago, a release from GINA said.

Jagdeo made this disclosure during an interview at the Office of the President with Michael Gordon, Editor-in-Chief of National Com-munications Network (NCN) and Adam Harris, Editor-in-Chief of the Kaieteur News.

The Head of State said “before I left Guyana, I said at the press conference that they were putting US$50 million from the petroleum fund into a special facility to deal with the OECS (Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States) countries that had problems with British American (Insurance Company), because they have some issues which are related to the CL Financial Group. I said, I thought it’s unfair…this is a regional problem and requires a regional solution…I argued for an additional US$15 million to come from that fund and to come from Guyana to assist with CLICO.”

The news would certainly be welcomed by all investors in the local company. On April 14, Judicial Manager of CLICO (Guyana) Maria van Beek declared that in a worst case scenario, the company’s liabilities will exceed its liabilities by $11.9 billion. However, President Bharrat Jagdeo in a recent press conference emphasised that this was only a worst case scenario.  He expressed optimism that Guyana would regain some of its money.

This comment came after several promises made by Jagdeo that no investor in the company will lose their money. The injection of the US$15 million from the petroleum fund is expected to significantly reduce the gap between the liabilities and assets. CLICO (Guyana) invested $6.9 billion (US$34M) in CLICO (Bahamas) which represented 53 percent of the local companies’ assets. Although these investments were liquid on paper, investigations have revealed that this sum has been tied up in real estate investments that CLICO (Bahamas) had in Florida through subsidiaries. When CLICO (Bahamas) was ordered liquidated on February 24, the local company was subsequently placed under judicial management.