Were it not for the ongoing legal wrangling with CLICO, the Government would have already paid out over $3 billion to customers of CLICO, a senior government official says.

The official, who requested anonymity, said that the government is willing to beginning the liquidation of the insurance company but said that recent attempts by lawyers to fight this process have prevented it from starting.

According to the government member, if the court had given the go ahead for the liquidation of the company over 2,000 customers would have been able to get their money back. The official opined that this was Globe Trust repeating itself all over again.

President Bharrat Jagdeo had said that the government was waiting on the court to grant the liquidation order so that it could honour its guarantee to the company’s customers. Guyana had received US$15 million from the petroleum fund to help offset expenses associated with this process.

CLICO came under financial strain after it invested a significant part of its assets in CLICO (Bahamas), which later found itself in financial woes. The local company invested $6.9 billion in CLICO (Bahamas) which represented 53 percent of the local company’s assets. Although these investments were liquid on paper, subsequent investigations 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.