Dear Editor,
First of all I must offer my prayers for the speedy recover of Ms Maria van Beek. This cowardly act was done by the weak and even if they are never caught by men, they will be caught by god and punished. Her work in a challenging situation to date was of a high standard. I felt comforted that she was willing to speak the truth regardless of the consequences.
After reading the newspapers’ interpretation of the judicial report, I ask why are we still keeping Ms Knights on at a company in whose collapse she played a part? I am concerned that she is still being allowed to serve the people of Guyana on the Board of GuySuCo. What skill set can she bring to the turnaround process? Even if she is not removed from office, she should do the honourable thing and resign from the GuySuCo Board since she no longer inspires trust. There are people like Dr Gopaul, Mr Burrowes and Mr Hanoman who can easily offer leadership to GuySuCo, so there is no need for fillers or ‘chair warmers’ in this process. I call on Ms Knight to resign from the GuySuCo and Berbice Bridge Boards.
This fiasco with Clico (Guyana) and the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance is stuff made for a PhD on how not to regulate and supervise the industry. Regardless of the mess, I must confess that I am very pleased with Ms van Beek’s performance in a crisis situation. She’s done a very detailed assessment of the situation, has taken cost control measures to stabilise the cash flow and she has conceived a strategy for the future with a possible sale of the good parts of the business to local competitors. I do not think there are many people in the world that could have done better in this situation.
The financial gap will have to be filled by the government. That is why I continue to insist that the trade unions, whose members are beneficiaries of the pension and medical plans at Clico (Guyana), must agitate for the government to give formal sanction to their responsibility in parliament and not leave this important decision to word of mouth. I would like to offer a few suggestions going forward as follows:
1. It is time the Office of the Insurance Commissioner become fully autonomous, not just in law but in spirit, like the Bank of Guyana, with its own building and with the ability to raise and spend its own funds without a political sign-off. The current shacking-up in the Privatisation Unit served its purpose during the setting-up stages but the ‘super-bowl’ is now on and the situation demands that this Office be adequately resourced so that it can operate independently of vested interests, similar to the way the Bank of Guyana functions with accountability only to its board (even though every board in the Caribbean is under threat now after the public offering of Mr Duprey).
2. The legislative infrastructure for the financial sector must be revised to make the entire industry more regulated, more accountable and more information-sharing focused. This includes the banks, trust companies, NBS, the insurance companies, NIS and all the other companies that manage and control substantial resources belonging to the public.
3. We should have a Freedom of Information Act for all licensed financial institutions, insurance companies, building societies and the NIS, of course, so that all shareholders, depositors, policyholders, etc, can rest assured that they have the power to know about the financial viability of these companies to which they are financially exposed. (I have seen the effectiveness of the Freedom of Information Act in the UK and in principle I would be one of the most fervent supporters of legislation of this nature. However, while the wider legislation is locked down in solitary confinement in parliament, we can try a sectoral version that will have minimal political implications but maximum economic impact on our nation’s financial industry)
Other than that, there is not much else to be done than actively regulate and sanction all violations surgically without delay and without fear or favour. Globe Trust and GNCB were learning experiences for the banking sector and now Clico (Guyana) is an experience for the insurance sector.
The Guyanese authorities were privileged enough to have first-hand knowledge and experience of adverse financial situations both in the banking and insurance sectors, and thus they have no excuse not to do it right in the future.
Yours faithfully,
Sasenarine Singh
