(Trinidad Express) Before the ink on the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between CL Financial and the State was dried, Gita Sakal, the conglomerate’s corporate secretary, was conspiring to ensure the Government did not get “control” of one of the group’s most prized assets.
This was on Monday revealed in a string of e-mail correspondence between Sakal and directors of Barbados firm Proman Holdings tendered into evidence at the commission of enquiry into the collapse of CL Financial and the Hindu Credit Union (HCU).
The e-mail correspondence was on Monday tendered into evidence by Senior Counsel Fyard Hosein, legal representative of the Ministry of Finance.
On January 30, 2009 CL Financial received a billion- dollar taxpayer bailout and signed a MOU which prohibited the sale of any group asset without State approval. On that same day Sakal sent an e-mail to Proman Holding’s representative on the CLICO Energy Board, Joseph Cassidy, informing him that she and CLICO Energy’s Managing Director Claus Cronberger “will ensure that GOTT (the Government of Trinidad and Tobago) does not get control”.
“The chairman (Lawrence Duprey) has appointed (former CL Financial group financial director Andre) Monteil’s company to negotiate on behalf of CLF without CLF board approval. (Motilal) Rampersad (ceo of Methanol Holding Trinidad Ltd and director of CLICO Energy) and others are mad because Monteil is getting rid on (of) energy and Republic (Bank). It is evident that the chairman has put the company’s future into the hands of Monteil. The GORTT has already announced that they will now have MHTL (Methanol Holdings Trinidad Ltd) shares. We will have a buy back option but that is impossible,” the e-mail stated.
