(Barbados Nation) The Barbados Policyholders and investors Alliance (BIPA) wants an investigation into the auditing of the troubled local operations of CLICO and British American Insurance Company Limited (BAICO). The alliance called for the probe in a statement released yesterday by chairperson June Fowler. The statement was responding to a recent article in the Trinidad Express newspaper claiming new evidence showed state and government officials in the twin-island nation knew long ago that CLICO was not only routinely breaking the rules but was operating well outside the law.

The paper quoted one financial analyst, Ved Seereeram, as saying if the regulators and external auditors had acted sooner on concerns raised 16 years ago by former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Finance and former Republic Bank chairman Frank Barsotti, now deceased, “the problems [at CLICO] could have been rectified, if not confined”.