Government has purchased the controversial Buccoo Estate in Tobago, popularly known as No Man’s Land, for $174, 806,775 million.

The 398.42 acre property, which is listed as one of the CL Financial’s (CLF) assets, was sold earlier this year. Each acre was valued at US$65,000, bringing the total value of the secluded property to US$25,897,300.

In 2016, Clico carried on its balance sheet the value of the land at roughly $187 million. The transfer agreement was completed on March 2017.

However, at a press conference last week, Carlton Reis, who represents CL Financial shareholders under the group United Shareholders Ltd, had estimated the land at $500 million.

Clico Policyholders Group chairman Peter Permell, in a July 16 Sunday Guardian article, said a Project Rebirth report prepared by PricewaterhouseCoppers estimated the fair market value of the property at approximately $867 million.

The land will be offered to Sandals chairman Gordon “Butch” Stewart for the construction of two hotel resorts comprising 750 rooms.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley confirmed Government purchased the property at market value. He said an issue was raised recently about Government’s taking possession of the CLF assets, noting it was argued that what was on the books was not the real value and Government should have sought a valuation.

“But it was said that the lands we took in Tobago in lieu of the debt and set off against the debt might have been improperly done and the value might not have been established properly. Let me today put that to rest,” he said.

“The Government, quite properly, through the relevant authority in all of this, the board set off the monies owed for the value of those land. And the value was established by reputable independent valuators in Trinidad and Tobago. And that is the value at which the Government’s debt was reduced by virtue of the value of this land.”

The PM warned all those who have been saying the Government took possession of the land and paid “half X for it... nothing is further from the truth. The law requires that any disposal of assets under the Central Bank, as it is now holding assets for Clico…any disposal requires fair market value. And that is exactly what we got in that.

He said the valuation was based on an analysis of 100 per cent of the common stock of Occidental Investments Ltd and Oceanic Properties Ltd, owned by Clico.

Rowley said a lot of misinformation was being put out in the public domain by people who were unaware “but who are fuelling conspiracies and ascribing misconduct to the Government” was misleading.

“Those lands would have been acquired by the Government at full market value established by reputable valuators.”

Rowley left a copy of the valuation for the media’s perusal, but did not field questions about the land.

CL Financial (CLF) shareholders claim to be unaware Angostura profits were being transferred to CL World Brands in Scotland. In fact, according to them, those profits were supposed to be going back to repay their debt to government.

They also say all the information regarding the transfer of Buccoo Estate in Tobago and Home Construction Limited’s (HCL) shares have not been put into the public domain.

This was the response of shareholders Kirk Carpenter and Carlton Reis at a press conference at Jenny’s on the Boulevard, Port-of-Spain, yesterday, hours after Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley told the public why the Government took CLF to court to recover the $15 billion debt it is owed.

“We noted that reference was made to the Angostura Group and payments being made to CL World Brands (CLWB). But as far as the shareholders are aware, the money that was being paid out of CLWB were used to pay off secured debts, including payments to CIB, which is part of the government debt,” Carpenter said.

“Other payments coming from the CLWB included the group’s tax liability owed to the Government.”

Carpenter made it clear that CLWB has properly audited accounts as required by UK Law.

With respect to the transfer of the Buccoo Estate and transfer of HCL shares, Carpenter said those assets were transferred to Government without the shareholders being informed, adding to date no valuation of those assets has been presented to them.

“It is that back drop that led the requisition to appoint two further directors to the CLF board with the sole purpose of expediting payment to the Government,” Carpenter said.

Addressing Rowley’s claim that CLF was not prepared to issue a debenture, Carpenter said they were prepared to do so since under the previous government and had almost reached an agreement.

“The previous government had a structure where it would negotiate with respect to the repayment of the debt, while their directors would run the company together with the shareholders’ directors,” Carpenter said.

However, he said when the current government came into power, “there was never any approach to have such a debenture executed.”

Additionally, Carpenter said decisions have been made by the CLF board without input from the shareholder directors.

As far as the company’s ability to repay their debt is concerned, he said: “CLF’s accounts, as far as I am aware, are unaudited management accounts and do not show the conglomerate’s true value. In fact, Clico and CIB have been left out of the management accounts of CLF, but this is where most of the group’s money lies to repay the government.

“We should remember that Clico’s debt to the government is as a policyholder, therefore their money is inside the statutory fund of Colonial Life Insurance Company, where CLF has no access. It is therefore impossible for CLF to instruct Clico to pay the government as a policyholder.

“Additionally, the book value of certain assets such as HCL is not properly valued since the majority of valuations are over a decade old. The total asset base of the CLF Group must be looked at in any repayment of the debt.”

The shareholders said this was not the first time misinformation has been placed in the public domain, but added they had the utmost confidence Rowley was properly advised.

He said during the 16th extension of their agreement with the government from June to August 2016, the shareholders made numerous requests to clarify the amount of the debt but got no information.

“We had meetings with the Minister of Finance in August 2016 where we were informed that the group was requested to repay $10 billion by June 2017. The chairman of CLF, in September 2016, asked me to prepare a presentation as to how the group would repay the $10 billion debt. It was eventually agreed for Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC) to present a proposal to repay the government,” Carpenter said.

He said after meetings with PWC, the shareholders and the shareholder directors, PWC came up with Project Rebirth.

“PWC gave three options available: a group consolidated disbursement to repay the debt; raising external financing and liquidation which was called “the nuclear option. PWC’s proposal favoured the first option,” Carpenter said.

In early January 2017, Project Rebirth was delivered to the Minister of Finance on the instruction of CLF’s chairman. But since that submission, the shareholders said they received no feedback from the Ministry of Finance “until sometime in late June.”

Head of the Clico Policyholders’ Group, Peter Permell, last night told the T&T Guardian they endorsed Carpenter’s statement, but declined to make any comment on Rowley’s statement until after they had studied it.

Permell said a number of things Rowley said may impact on his group, whilst some may not.

“But at the end of the day, our interests, in a sense, are intertwined in that of the shareholders from the perspective that if you start winding up CLF it is going to eventually trickle down to Clico. Therefore, we are concerned about anything that is going to affect the fortunes of Clico,” Permell said.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley yesterday took umbrage to his Government being accused of betraying black people, as the State moves to recover a $15 billion debt owed by CLF through the courts.

Rowley raised the issue while speaking to the media at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, noting the issue had been a major topic of discussion in the public domain recently.

“You see the discussion that took place here last week (referring to the court action) about this black man company and this black company and this black government betraying black people, I take serious umbrage to that.”

In explaining why he took offense to the accusation, Rowley said it was the late Dr Eric Williams who wrote that the blackest thing in slavery was not the black man.

“And for all of you who have talked about black man...and black man this and black man that, I might be the blackest man in Trinidad and Tobago. So black that when I was made leader of the PNM, some of the very voices who are now talking about black man company and being betrayed by black man, the argument then was that I couldn’t lead the party and I couldn’t lead the country because I was too black.”

Rowley said the issue now before the court and country was not about race and that folly must be exposed and dismissed for what it was.

“Because that is the kind of foolishness that gets the taxpayer to join like a turkey voting for thanksgiving.”

He said when taxpayers are supposed to be supporting the Government to protect their money, people were instead encouraging them to have their monies exposed without interest and protection and to have their only representative, the Government, kicked off the CLF board.

Rowley said he hoped citizens would understand the message he relayed.

Stories by The Police Service Social and Welfare Association say they will support and defend any officer who refuses to use the body worn cameras in the absence of documentation from the acting Police Commissioner on the guidelines for using the new equipment.

In a telephone interview yesterday, general secretary of the association, Insp Anand Ramesar, said while the association supports the philosophy of the body worn cameras, they will not be supporting any “unilateral decisions” made by acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams. Ramesar said there is currently no policy to guide the use of the new equipment and how the officers be judged while using it.

Ramesar said: “What the (acting) Commissioner of Police needs to do is have a documented policy on use of the body worn cameras so that police officers will have a better understanding on how their conduct is going to be interpreted and what are the strengths and weaknesses of the body worn cameras.”

Last week, Williams launched a national project to outfit 60 police officers across the nine divisions with body cameras as a six-month pilot project. The aim is to gather information before possibly equipping every officer with the cameras. Williams said, then, that the project came following several calls by the association for the use of body worn cameras.

“I cannot see any platform for any police officer who do not wear it to be disciplined. What I hope though is that given it is a pilot project that the Commissioner will ensure that it is a very smooth environment which can only be achieved through consultation. The association will interrogate the framework in which the officer is made to wear it and if there is none that compels him, we will stand to protect our officer” Ramesar said.

Yesterday, when asked if police are now retracting their position for fear that their alleged misdeeds of bribery and brutality will be recorded, Ramesar said: “Such utterances are ill-intended and very non-nonsensical in terms of understanding where police officers want to go. These criticisms are not applicable to the Police Service at this time.”

He added that the cameras may hinder police response to situations as the officers will be concerned about how their actions may be judged later by their peers, the public and the Police Complaints Authority. He added that now police officers will have to be “dotting their I’s and crossing their T’s”. He admitted that the public will be the sole beneficiary of the project.

“I am not too happy with my officers being guinea pigs without some sort of consultation on the issue or some guarantee that a pilot project is just that, a pilot project and it is all about data collecting at this stage and we will see how the data is collected at this period. We need to have a framework. What about data sharing? What about the public who do not want to be filmed? These things need to be answered and there is no response on these issues” Ramesar said.

He added that the if there is no consultation between now and next Tuesday when the six-month trial is scheduled to begin, then he will meet with his membership and get guidance from them. He added that the consultation will take into consideration the “culture of policing in Trinidad and Tobago”.

A seven-year-old boy who told his family he was going to use the bathroom, drowned at a community pool in a gated community in Trincity on Wednesday.

The child, Roberto Heeraman, according to police reports, was not heard from for some minutes and when his relatives went to check, they found the child to the bottom of the pool with his hand stuck in the water filtering system. Heeraman had just left the pool where he and his 15-year-old brother were bathing, police said.

Police said Heeraman was pronounced dead on arrival at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex after spending close to five minutes beneath the water at East Gate of the Greens apartment complex.

The pool is surrounded by five apartment complexes and is only available to tenants between 5 am to 8 pm daily. The incident took place around 2 pm on Wednesday.

When the T&T Guardian visited yesterday around the same time, the pool area was empty with three employees closeby and security making checks.

Heeraman is the second child to drown since school closed for the July-August vacation. Messi Gorkin, 3, drowned after he went missing while with family at the Board walk in Chaguaramas.

The child was last seen alive around 5pm on July 16, his body was found floating around 6 am the following day near Pier One Chaguaramas.

The Judicial and Legal Service Commission has apologised for its failure to submit its annual reports to Parliament between 2008 and 2015, as required under the Constitution.

In a press release issued in response to a report in the Trinidad Express newspaper over the issue, the Director of Personnel Administration said that the commission acknowledged the error.

“The omission was in fact brought to its attention by the Service Commissions Department, which provides the secretariat to assist all Service Commissions in preparation of reports, while the Department was preparing the 2016 Annual Report, in keeping with the provisions of Section 66C(2) of the Constitution,” the release said.

It claimed that the department was in the process of bringing the reports up-to-date and that it would be complete by October 1.

“The JLSC apologises to the Office of the President for the omission and wishes to assure that no disrespect was intended to His Excellency or to the Office of the President,” the release added.

The requirement was introduced by Parliament in 2000 when the Constitution was amended to introduce Joint Select Committees of Parliament. Under the amendment, the JLSC is the only service commission exempt from scrutiny from a JSC but is required to submit its annual reports to the President.

After, the reports are then to be tabled in both houses of Parliament.

According to the newspaper report, the last report to be submitted and tabled was the one for 2007.

The failure to submit occurred exclusively under the tenure of embattled Chief Justice Ivor Archie, who is the chairman of the commission.

The JLSC has been under public scrutiny since the debacle caused by the short-lived appointment of former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar.

Ayers-Caesar resigned within two weeks of being appointed a High Court Judge, amid criticism over the 52 cases she left unfinished when she took up the post.

Ayers-Caesar had claimed that she had informed Archie that she had 28 matters pending, however, a later audit revealed that the actual figure was double what was anticipated.

Ayers-Caesar has since sued the JLSC as she claimed that she was pressured to resign.

With uncertainty over how to address the unfinished cases, the JLSC held a stakeholders meeting in which it was decided that the case should be restarted.

However, weeks later the JLSC admitted that the proposed move was not a final decision on the issue but merely a suggestion.

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is still considering how to proceed with the cases.

On June 1, the Law Association passed a historic no confidence motion in Archie and the JLSC over their handling of Ayers-Caesar’s case and called on them to resign.

The United National Congress (UNC) also filed a lawsuit challenging the composition of the JLSC and its ability to make decisions without its full complement of members. The lawsuit was dismissed by the Court of Appeal but is currently before the Privy Council.

Later that month JLSC members Humphrey Stollmeyer and Roger Hamel-Smith resigned citing personal reasons including trauma to their families from undue criticism over their work.

President Anthony Carmona is still in the process of filling the vacancies.

Besides Archie, the current members of the JLSC are head of the Public Service Commission (PSC) Maureen Manchouck and attorney Ernest Koylass, SC.

High Court judge David Harris will rule on September 28 whether former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar can take legal action against the Judicial Legal Services Commission (JLSC) and President Anthony Carmona over her resignation in April.

Ayers-Caesar is seeking a judicial review against the JLSC chaired by Chief Justice Ivor Archie and Carmona, challenging what she said was her forced resignation as a judge, deeming it to be illegal. The matter came up for hearing in the San Fernando High Court before Harris yesterday.

Ayers-Caesar was represented by Senior Counsel, Ramesh Lawrence-Maharaj and his legal team. The application, inclusive of a witness statement belonging to Ayers-Caesar, was filed last week.

Ayers-Caesar is also suing the JLSC and the Office of the Attorney General.

Attorneys Russell Martineau SC, Deborah Peake SC, Ian Benjamin and Ian Roach represented the JLSC while Reginald Armour SC, Ravi Hesses-Doon and Ravi Nanga appeared the Office of the Attorney General.

Ayers-Caesar, took the oath before President Carmona on April 12. She later tendered her resignation on April 27 and on that same day, Archie issued a statement accusing her of not making himself or the JLSC aware of the “full extent of her obligation in the Magistrates’ Court before she was sworn in.” 

In reference to some 53 part-heard matters that Ayers-Caesar had pending at the Magistrates’ Court, Archie accused her of failing “to manage the transition from the magistracy to the High Court in a way which ensured that undue hardship was not placed on stake holders.”

Yesterday, Maharaj presented the application for leave to file for judicial review on Ayers-Caesar’s behalf, telling the court that she had been forced to sign a resignation letter that had been written for her by the CJ’s secretary on April 27, 2017.

He said an appointment had been made for her to meet Carmona by the JLSC. He said both of these things, among others, constituted a breach of the Section 137 of the Constitution which states a judge can only be removed from office for misbehaviour and an inability to perform the function of office.

He submitted that the actions of the JLSC and Carmona were unlawful and unfair to Ayers-Caesar and amounted a constructive dismissal and constructive removal from her position as a judge. He further submitted the actions of both parties threatened the judicial independence and security of tenure of judges.

Harris ordered that the JLSC and the AG’s office file their responses to the application on or before September 8, 2017. Maharaj was given 14 days after that to file any response to the two parties.

The matter was then set for hearing on September 28, 2017 at the Port-of-Spain High Court. 

Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams has mandated his charges to increase the rate of prosecution of firearm offenders, in order to reduce T&T’s high level of violent crimes.

Delivering the feature address at the Southern Division Awards Function and Dinner for 2016 on Wednesday at the JR&D Convention Centre, Williams said that whereas the focus in 2016 was illegal firearms recovery, sending the offenders to prison was their new goal.

“For us as an organisation, it is not only about seizing firearms and setting new records...One of the records that are necessary to set in 2017, which we did not focus on in 2016, is the prosecution to conviction of the firearm offenders. If we can focus on the firearm offenders and successfully prosecute them, I believe that the country will see that obvious correlation between the number of firearm offenders put away and link it to a drop in violence in Trinidad and Tobago.

“In that context, we have mandated all divisional commanders to identify those firearm offenders in their respective division and focus on preparing the cases so that the court could be in a position to benefit from our readiness to lead evidence and finally convict those individuals of the offences that they would have committed. If we do that in a record breaking away in 2017, it is almost guaranteed that the drop in violence that we seek, we will achieve,” Williams said.

In 2016, the Southern Division recovered 170 firearms, an all time record among all divisions. For this year, 96 firearms have been recovered in the Southern Division. There was a slight increase in murders in 2016 from 2015. Supt Yussuff Gafar said there was a 1 per cent reduction in serious crime in 2016. Out of the 1752 serious crimes recorded last year, 526 were solved.

The Industrial Court has ordered that international courier firm DHL pay $2.3 million in compensation for the wrongful dismissal of its former district manger for the English-speaking Caribbean.

Delivering an oral judgment yesterday, Industrial Court judge Melvin Daniel ruled that the company acted unlawfully when it made the manager redundant less than two months after she was given the position in August 2012.

Lawyers representing the worker’s union, the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU), requested that the worker’s identity be withheld as she feared she might become a victim of crime due to her windfall from the case.

According to the evidence in the case, the company claimed the worker was made redundant in March 2013 due to a restructuring exercise throughout the international organisation.

However, the CWU, claimed that she was fired as she was forced to take a month sick leave in December 2012 after being diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The disorder arose out of an incident in 2007, in which the woman’s husband was murdered during a botched robbery whilst they and their children were on vacation in Venezuela.

The union claimed that the redundancy was a sham to disguise the real reason for her dismissal.

“The worker suffered from PTSD, and as a consequence, the employer elected to contrive this redundancy in order to rid themselves of an employee who was ill, had been on extended sick leave, and as a consequence, the risk was that she would not be capable of operating at premium levels,” the union’s lawyer Michael Quamina said in his submission in the case.

The union also took issue with the fact that the company attempted to produce a computer generated report from October 2012, which it claimed showed that the worker was being considered for redundancy.

“It is wholly inconsistent with redundancy for it to be the case that a worker who is made redundant is promoted into a position a mere two months prior to the commencement of the exercise,” Quamina said.

He also pointed to the fact that after the worker returned from a month sick leave in December 2012, she was offered voluntary separation from the company due to illness. While she was challenging the move, she was made redundant.

“It was only when the company came to the view that the workers’ illness may affect her performance was separation explored, and when the negotiations for separation promised to be tough, they instead surreptitiously created the redundancy with respect to the worker and separated her on the minimum formula provided under the Retrenchment and Severance Act in order to avoid costs associated with a negotiated separation,” Quamina said.

In his judgment Daniel agreed with the union’s explanation for the incident as he described the dismissal as egregious.

While the union was claiming that the worker was entitled to three years of her last monthly salary ($123,000 inclusive of a car and housing allowance), Daniel reduced the figure.

The decision to make your diet one that is low in sugar, low in toxins and that’s filled with high-fibre foods is one of the best decisions you can make because following such a diet is crucial for supporting your liver.

Increasing the amounts of antioxidants and fibre in your diet can even cause liver damage and disease to be reversed. The liver is the main organ that is involved in the process of detoxification since it is responsible for removing toxins created both inside and outside of your body.

When the liver can’t remove harmful substances, the immune system takes the rising level of toxins as a threat, which causes inflammation. An influx of sugar from foods like refined grains, sugary snacks and sweetened drinks puts a lot on pressure on your liver to convert and store glucose and should be avoided as much as possible.

Chelsea Bedase

El Dorado

Finance Minister Colm Imbert says approximately $1.108 billion of Angostura’s profits was siphoned off to Scottish firm CL World Brands (CLWB) over a period of several years.

But Imbert assured that this CLWB matter will be tackled vigorously, and the exact amount of money lent, what it was used for and the beneficiaries in the transactions will be unearthed.

He made the disclosure one day after Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said Government had discovered that “substantial profits” from one of CL Financial (CLF) subsidiaries—Angostura Ltd—had been transferred to CLWB, creating a pool of funds outside of T&T.

“We found out in recent weeks that the Angostura profit was going to a company in Scotland called CL World Brands, purportedly owned 100 per cent by shareholders who were bailed out by the Government,” Rowley said during a statement to the nation on Thursday.

Having examined the facts, Rowley said they realised that the shareholders did not in fact own 100 per cent of the company. Rather, he said 60 per cent of Angostura belonged to CIB and Clico, while the remaining 40 per cent was owned by the Scottish company. Rowley also indicated that Government was alarmed by this development, but discovered that one person was responsible for facilitating this activity and took action.

The PM’s statement came two days after the Government was given the green light by the High Court to appoint provisional liquidators to preserve the assets of CLF, as it seeks to recover a $15 billion debt following its bailout of the conglomerate in 2009. Government has bailed out CLICO and CLF related companies to the tune of $23 billion, but to date only $7.5 billion had been repaid.

When asked in an email yesterday exactly how much of Angostura’s profits CLWB had received, Imbert wrote, “In Mr (Vishnu) Dhanpaul’s affidavit (Permanent Secretary in the Finance Ministry) in the application to the court to appoint provisional liquidators, its is stated that $1.108 billion was taken from CL World Brands and “lent” to CL Financial.”

The transfer, Imbert said, was done over a period of several years.

Asked how the Government eventually discovered the profits were being transferred to CLWB, since there was no audited financial statement provided to Government through its board members, Imbert said the figure of $1.108 billion “lent” by CLWB to CLF was recorded in CLF’s April 30, 2017 management accounts.

Asked if the Government can now retrieve the substantial sum, Imbert said they had applied for the appointment of provisional liquidators to preserve and protect the assets of CLF.

“This CLWB matter will be addressed when the provisional liquidators determine the exact amount of money “lent” by CLWB to CLF and what it was used for, and by whom, and who the beneficiaries of this money were,” Imbert wrote.

Imbert, however, refused to identify who was the person identified as the facilitator of the siphoning of the funds.

In the winding up petition filed in the High Court by Dhanpaul on July 11, it was suggested that former managing director and group CEO of CLF Marlon Holder may have had a role in the matter.

In his affidavit, Dhanpaul sated that Holder was terminated on the grounds that he caused the sum of $403,750 to be paid to the United Shareholders Ltd (USL) for professional and business consultancy fees without invoices for those services. The petition document also stated that Holder, who began working at CLF on February 25, 2016 and was fired on June 28, caused or facilitated the write off of inter-company debt without board approval, caused dividend from Angostura Ltd to be transferred to CLWB and or CLF without prior notification to the board, engaged in Pricewaterhouse Coopers purportedly on behalf of CLF for the preparation of Project Rebirth without authorisation and failed to report to the board any details of the project.

Under the headline CLWB in the petition, it stated that CLF had taken a number of unsecured loans from Scottish subsidiary CLWB.

“According to a report submitted by the chairman of CLF dated June 20, 2017, over the past three years CLF has borrowed a total of US$138.6 million to pay inter alia debts of subsidiaries and other creditors, but not the Government of T&T,” Dhanpaul wrote.

The petition stated that these were long term loans with five-year moratorium for payment.

“CLF’s shareholding in CLWB is one of its assets that it had proposed to be applied to settle its indebtedness to the Government,” the petition stated.

Issue picked up in 2016

Fired managing director and group CEO of CLF Marlon Holder, who is challenging his dismissal in court in a filed affidavit dated July 24, says it was Angostua chairman, Dr Rolph Balgobin, who first brought to his attention CLWB board approval for two loans made from CLWB to CLF.

“The corporate secretary confirmed that there had been approval for one loan and that she was unsure at the moment about board approval for the second loan. All monies borrowed from CLWB were used to pay taxes and other loans due to Government related entities,” Holder stated in his affidavit.

Holder explained that Ingrid Lashley, nominee of the Government of T&T, then raised the issue of not ever seeing the accounts of CLWB since their appointment to the board in 2016.

“She indicated that the Government nominees knew nothing about CLWB. I responded that CLWB was on the list of companies that were assigned board members including Balgobin,” Holder stated in his affidavit.

Holder said Lashley enquired about the signing off by him of the 2015 accounts of CLWB without board approval.

“I told them that I was asked by KPMG that same day, then Jennifer Frederick (CLF’s corporate secretary) said that if I did not sign off the CLWB accounts they would miss the filing deadline and CLWB would be subject to being absorbed by the UK Treasury,” Holder said in his affidavit

Holder said he did not have time to call an audit committee or board meeting in the circumstances.

“My main concern was that CLWB, which had about US$13 million or thereabouts in cash, would be lost to CLF and that I wanted to act immediately as the filing deadline was that day and KPMG had just finalised the accounts,” Holder wrote in the affidavit

Holder said that then enquired about the impairment of the loan to CLF on CLWB books.

“I said it was the auditors KPMG who impaired the CLF loan on the basis that CLF could not repay the loan. The impairment figure was £71 million. I said that CLWB is a 100 per cent owned subsidiary of CLF. To correct the impairment is for CLWB to receive payment from CLF and simultaneously CLWB pay CLF a dividend (a net off transaction),” Holder said in his affidavit.

After being interrogated by the Government nominees whilst they ate pizza, Holder said he was asked by Balgobin to leave the room.

Calls to Holder’s cellphone went unanswered and he did not respond to a text message yesterday.

Also a female who answered former CLF chairman Lawrence Duprey’s phone said he was not available for comment.

Not so, Mariano.

That’s the Finance Ministry’s position on certain statements made by former finance minister Mariano Browne on the CL Financial issue yesterday.

The ministry, headed by Finance Minister Colm Imbert, took issue with Browne’s statements in relation to the reason why the CL Financial shareholders refused to extend the shareholders’ agreement with the Government. He made the comments during a programme on I95.5 FM.

Via a release last night, the ministry stated, “Mr. Browne incorrectly alleged that the shareholders refused to extend the agreement, which would have maintained the status quo in terms of the composition of the board of CL Financial, and thus maintained Government’s control of CL Financial, because the Government refused to respond to a plan from the shareholders for repayment of money owed by CL Financial to the Government for what is known as the ‘Clico bailout.’

“However, Mr. Browne’s time line is completely wrong because the last extension to the shareholders’ agreement expired on August 31, 2016 and the so-called ‘plan’, Project Rebirth, was only submitted by the shareholders on January 6, 2017, over four months later.”

The Ministry added, “It is not possible therefore that the shareholders refused to extend the agreement for the reason advanced by Mr. Browne. It is regrettable that a former Minister in the Ministry of Finance would misrepresent the facts in this way,”

Browne was a minister in finance under the Patrick Manning PNM government which had undertaken the bailout of CLF after its insurance subsidiaries—CLICO and British American—collapsed in 2009. The current Dr Keith Rowley-led PNM administration is seeking to recoup $15 billion as the debt owed from that bailout.

CL Financial (CLF) has been given the assurance that the appointment of Grant Thorton as provisional liquidator of the company will not impact the ongoing business of any of its subsidiaries or investments.

The assurance came in a press release yesterday from attorney Bronock A Reid, who is acting on behalf of CLF.

The release stated that the Court of Appeal placed CLF into provisional liquidation on July 25 and appointed Hugh Dickson and Marcus Wide, of Grant Thornton, as joint provisional liquidators following an application to the High Court of Justice by the Attorney General on behalf of the Government

“It is important to note that this appointment relates solely to CL Financial Ltd and does not impact the ongoing business of any of the subsidiaries or investments owned by CL Financial Limited,” the release stated.

The information would have brought a sigh of relief from employees of the CLF subsidiaries, who had feared that the freeze on CLF assets would have also affected their operations.

The release explained that the role of the provisional liquidators was to protect and conserve the assets and business records of CLF in accordance with the order of the court, pending the determination by the court of a winding up petition.

“The powers and duties of the directors and board of CLF are suspended pending the outcome of that petition,” the release added.

It stated that any queries from creditors of CLF should be directed to provisionalliquidators@clfinancial.com

Three separate shootings on Thursday, one near two police stations, have left five men hospitalised and their attackers still on the run.

The most brazen of attacks took place near Riverside Plaza, which houses the Region One Homicide Bureau and the Besson Street Police Station.

Police said 21-year-old Misha Quamina was injured when a gunman opened fire on Kern Moore, 36. Police said around 9.50 pm Moore, of Waterhole Cocorite, was driving east along the Old St Joseph Road when just after Riverside Plaza his car broke down.

While attending to his car, Moore said a man approached and began questioning him. Dissatisfied with the response given by Moore, the man pulled out a gun. Moore ran towards the Riverside Plaza screaming for help.

The gunman opened fire, hitting Moore in the right leg and Quamina in the left arm before fleeing. Both men were taken to the Port of-Spain General Hospital while the gunmen escaped despite police’s prompt response. Port-of-Spain Division had warned motorists about using the road way to enter and leave the city after a gunman had randomly shot at motorists from the hills with a rifle.

In the other shootings, which took place in the Western Division, officers said gunmen in two separate incidents left three men wounded.

Around 1.30 pm, Mathew Birch, 25 of Pregnancy Lane, La Puerta Diego Martin, was shot in the abdomen and left leg after he was accused of being involved in a murder in the Western Division.

Less than five minutes after Birch was shot, two Claxton Bay men, who were salvaging scrap iron in Petit Valley, were shot after men from the area promised them scrap iron.

Police said the men, Lester David and Junior Joefield were at Humming Bird Circular, Simeon Road, Petit Valley collecting the scrap iron when they were approached by a group of men. After enquiring why David and Joefield were in the area, the group promised to return with more scrap iron for them.

While waiting one man from the group returned and opened fire on the duo without warning. David was shot in both arms, while Joefield was shot in the abdomen.

Millions of dollars worth of hardware supplies, furniture and vehicles went up in flames yesterday, after a fire destroyed the Jameel Baksh Hardware in Barrackpore.

According to reports, Dianne Baksh, co-owner of the business, secured and left the compound along Wright Trace, Cumuto Road, around 5 pm. An hour later, however, she was informed that the hardware was on fire.

Residents near the hardware contacted the Princes Town Fire Station, but by the time the officers arrived the hardware was already destroyed.

PC Ramkissoon and PC Boodram of the Barrackpore Police Station also responded.

Besides the hardware supplies, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of furniture from their woodworking factory, a Toyota Prado, a BMW X5, two Isuzu D Max, a Porche vehicle and a panel van were destroyed.

When the T&T Guardian visited, a worker said Jameel Baksh, who had just returned from missionary work in Guyana yesterday, was at the mosque.

The hardware also shares a compound with Baksh Farms as well as their construction firm.

Fire prevention officers were at the scene last evening trying to determine the cause of the fire. The value of the damage is yet to be ascertained.

Christopher Julien, the man who exposed himself to students at a primary school in San Fernando on two occasions, was sentenced to a total of 20 months with hard labour when he appeared in court yesterday.

Julien, 39, was arrested in May for indecently exposing himself in front of a boy’s primary school, after police officers saw him standing with his jersey raised and his pants and underwear at his knees. He was holding his private part in his hand. When he was arrested, Julien reportedly told the officers, “I like them lil children.”

The officer held onto his hand to arrest him, but Julien began pulling away in a violent manner, eventually freed himself and began to run away from the officers. He was caught a short distance away. He was also charged with resisting arrest and escaping lawful custody.

Julien had also been charged in March for exposing himself while standing opposite the Anstey Memorial Girls’ Anglican School and sentenced to 60 days in prison. Several months before that, he was sentenced to 40 days in jail for exposing himself to a woman. He also has prior convictions for possession of cocaine and marijuana.

When he appeared in court on May 22, Senior Magistrate Cherril-Anne Antoine sent Julien for psychiatric evaluation at the St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital. Yesterday when he went before the court, Antoine said the report found that he was fit to plead.

Antoine said since Julien had already spent two months in custody awaiting the evaluation and the maximum penalty for indecent exposure was 60 days in jail, she would place him on a three-year bond on that charge. On the charge of resisting arrest, she sentenced him to 18 months hard labour and for escaping lawful custody he was sentenced to two months hard labour.

The sentences are to run concurrently so Julien will serve a total of 18 months behind bars.

Attorney Joseph Melville was yesterday sentenced to 19 years in prison for attempting to murder his former secretary Patricia Cox in 2001.

Melville, 62, from Sangre Grande, received the sentence from Justice Maria Wilson in the Port-of-Spain High Court, almost two months after he was convicted of the crime for the second time in 13 years.

He was given a 19-year sentence for attempting to murder Cox, 14 years for kidnapping her, nine years for conspiring to murder her and four years for assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Melville will only serve the highest sentence, however, as the sentences were ordered to be served concurrently.

He is also expected to be released in less than 14 years, as the four years and nine months he spent in prison awaiting his appeal after his first conviction in 2004 was deducted from his sentence.

In passing the sentences on Melville, Wilson noted that there were no mitigating factors to his benefit except that he had a clean criminal record prior to the incident.

Wilson said the aggravating factors in the case which helped determine his sentence, included the fact that he was in a position of trust as Cox’s employer, that he was the mastermind of the crime and that he participated by instructing Cox to go with the men he had hired to kill her.

Melville sat silently in the prisoner enclosure of the court as the sentence was being read and waved to relatives and friends in the public gallery as he was being led away by police officers.

During his trial before Wilson, State prosecutors relied on Cox’s testimony, as well as that of Ainsley Alleyne, who along with Hilton Winchester and Jason Holder were hired by Melville to kidnap and kill Cox.

Alleyne was made a State witness in the case and testified against Melville in his preliminary inquiry. However, he died shortly after and his witness statement detailing the crime was read to the jury. Holder was initially charged with the crime but was freed of the charges during the inquiry. Winchester was convicted alongside Melville in 2004 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Winchester did not appeal his conviction.

Alleyne had claimed that on June 28, 2001, he was approached by Melville, through mutual friend Holder, and was offered $40,000 to kill Cox.

“He said she (Cox) was talking his business with the police and Fraud Squad was getting close,” Alleyne said.

Cox, in her testimony, had admitted that she had threatened to report Melville after she learned that he (Melville) had cashed in two insurance policies and failed to pay them to his client.

Alleyne testified that he, Holder and Winchester got instructions from Melville to drive to and wait by his office at Pembroke Street, Port-of-Spain, where Cox would meet them for what she believed would be a drive to collect legal documents at a client’s home. He said after Cox got into the car, Winchester drove to Cumberland Hill in St James.

Before reaching the location, Alleyne “locked” Cox’s neck while Holder stripped her of her clothes and jewellery. He admitted to attempting to sexually assault Cox in the car, but claimed to have stopped after she said she was on her period.

Alleyne said upon reaching the location, they took Cox out of the car and placed her to sit on a boulder next to a precipice, as they pondered how they would kill her as they had no knives or guns.

“He (Holder) picked up a stone and said it would be the fastest way to do it,” Alleyne said.

He said Cox was begging for her life and he informed her that it was Melville who had hired them to kill her. Cox then offered to pay them a larger sum to forgo killing her.

“I asked her if she wanted to hide out and pretend to be dead and we would split the money with her when we got paid,” he said.

Before they could respond to her proposal, she jumped off the precipice and ran into a forested area. Holder found her but was forced to let her go after a man who was hiking in the area saw the incident through his binoculars and raised an alarm. Cox said she hid for a while and then hiked through the forested area through the night until she reached a housing development the next morning.

Alleyne said hours later he and Holder went to Melville’s home at Sangre Grande, where he told Melville he had strangled Cox with his vest but could not say if she was dead as he and Holder were forced to quickly push her over the precipice because they had noticed a car approaching them.

Independence Day (August 31) in T&T has become synonymous with three major events: the military parade in the morning, the national awards in the evening and the fireworks display to top it all off.

However, starting from this year one of those events will no longer be a part of that list.

President Anthony Carmona yesterday announced that the national awards will now be held on Republic Day (September 24) instead of Independence Day.

It was “more appropriate” to have the awards ceremony on Republic Day instead of Independence Day, Carmona said.

Carmona said the national awards on Republic Day would be a great way for citizens to celebrate this country’s self-governance “meaningfully and with great honour.”

He previously wrote stakeholders to tell them that.

As President, Carmona is the “Chancellor of the Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago” and therefore is “responsible for the administration of the Order, which includes the ceremonial presentation of the National Awards,” a release from the Office of the President stated yesterday.

In his letter to stakeholders, Carmona stated that when Trinidad and Tobago achieved Republican status 14 years after Independence, we no longer owed allegiance to the Queen”

“This paved the way for National Awards to be conferred in the name of the Head of State, the President, whose constitutional and ceremonial authority, legitimacy and remit are embedded and rooted in the Republican Constitution,” Carmona’s letter stated.

“In my Republic Day Address to the Nation on September 24, 2013, I stated...in the minds of many of us there exist some uncertainty and ambivalence about the significance of Republic Day...Perhaps the key difference between Independence Day and Republic Day is that Independence Day commemorates the road to freedom from colonial rule—which in our case was a relatively peaceful one —while Republic Day celebrates our achievements born out of our thirst for self-governance and the desire to determine our future. Independence Day celebrates the birth of our Nation but Republic Day celebrates our adulthood, our coming of age,” Carmona stated.

“I therefore would like to propose that as a Nation we celebrate our Republican status meaningfully and with great honour by hosting the annual National Awards on Republic Day rather than on Independence Day.

“This is not meant in any way to minimise or trivialise the historic significance and importance of Independence Day. No doubt, however, the National Awards Ceremony on Republic Day would raise the national consciousness of our people, deepen our sense of patriotism and pride in ourselves, give added credence to the Republican Constitution, and bring greater awareness of the true meaning and importance of Republic Day. I hope that these humble sentiments meet with your national expectations as to the Annual National Awards Ceremony being hosted on Republic Day,” Carmona stated.

While this country has saved close to $55 million in HIV/Aids antiretroviral drugs over the last year the total cost of HIV/Aids treatment in this country is still not known as it took into account several variables including personnel, equipment and the loss of productivity.

Making the comments was Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh who delivered the feature address at the launch of T&T System of Health Accounts Sensitisation Workshop held at the Works Ministry, Port-of-Spain yesterday.

He said due to the lack of data it meant that spending was not being accurately measured but added that initiatives would be put in place to address this.“What are we really spending as a society on HIV/Aids? But we know we spend about $40 billion a year on drugs,” Deyalsingh said.

He said the $55 million saved on HIV/Aids antiretroviral drugs was due to access from the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) strategic fund. The minister said the drugs were no longer being brought in by local distributors but were purchased directly from the PAHO fund, resulting in “a lot of profit being cut out.”

“We reviewed the protocols also for oncology where we would provide a guaranteed supply of a basket of drugs and also for HIV/Aids. “Also we are relying more on the PAHO strategic fund to purchase these drugs and this would make the drugs more accessible and more affordable at all the sites that we want to make them available. We have saved $55 million without jeopardising the amount of drugs and we have also ordered more,” Deyalsingh said.

Asked about the availability of HIV/Aids drugs especially in rural areas the minister said such difficulties no longer existed as the protocols regarding drug classification has been reviewed.

He said HIV/Aids strategies were also expected to be strengthened with the reintroduction of the US’s (President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) aimed at assisting small countries like T&T.

Deyalsingh said when the HIV/Aids Coordinating Unit was placed under the previous health ministry it “lost some momentum and focus” and access to PEPFAR funding was temporarily stopped.

“It took me about a year to save PEPFAR and I am hoping we would continue to benefit from PEPFAR in the new financial year. So it’s a total revamp of our HIV/Aids response,” Deyalsingh said.

He said close to 11,000 are living with HIV and of that figure 80 percent know their status.

“We need to get that figure up by 90 percent and then those 90 percent should be on drugs and 90 percent who are drugs should have their viral load suppressed enough to be HIV free.

“And that is how the world is going to move....to being HIV free by 2020,” Deyalsingh said.

Regarding the infection rate, he said there was an increase of this in men over 50 and in teenaged girls over 15.

Saying that education was key, Deyalsingh said there could be a “whole new generation coming up” which could be unaware of what the toll of HIV/Aids entailed. 

Acting Chief Magistrate Maria Bubsy-Earle-Caddle has appeared to have reversed her position on who decided that the 53 cases left unfinished through the short-lived judicial appointment of her predecessor, Marcia Ayers-Caesar, should be restarted.

While Bubsy-Earle-Caddle had repeatedly stated that she was “waiting on instructions on how to proceed” with the cases before she finally made the announcement on June 1, she is now claiming that she made the decision solely.

Bubsy-Earle-Caddle made the statement in response to a lawsuit threat against her, members of the Judicial and Legal Service Commission (JLSC) and legal stakeholders, who met and discussed the issue of the unfinished cases on May 25.

In a letter sent to attorney Anand Ramlogan, SC, who is representing one of the men affected by the decision, Busby-Earle-Caddle’s attorney, Vishma Jaisingh, explained that she had made her decision on the issue before communicating it to Chief Justice Ivor Archie.

“By letter dated May 31, 2017, to our client, the Honourable Chief Justice confirmed the discussion between our client and Honourable Chief Justice that our client would proceed as agreed between them, to rehear part heard matters which become abortive when the former chief magistrate ceased to be a magistrate,” Jaisingh said.

She also claimed that there were no other communications between Archie and Busby-Earle-Caddle before she announced the decision to Ramlogan’s client on June 1.

Busby-Earle-Caddle’s recent statement has heightened uncertainty over the controversial decision which had been met with protest from those affected.

In his response to Ramlogan’s lawsuit, Archie claimed that it was based on a “wholly erroneous premise” as it challenges a mistaken press release which was issued by the Judiciary following the stakeholder meeting.

The release issued by the Judiciary’s Court Protocol and Information Manager Alicia Carter-Fisher, the day after the meeting, stated: “key stakeholders comprising the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago represented by its Vice President and members of the Criminal Bar, the acting Chief Magistrate, Senior Magistrates and the Registrar of the Supreme Court to determine the way forward for the fifty-three (53) part heard matters left unresolved by the former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar”.

“Consensus was reached and the meeting on Wednesday 24th May 2017 agreed to have all fifty-three (53) matters restarted “de novo”.

The acting Chief Magistrate will preside over indictable matters...”

However, Archie through his attorney Ian Roach, claimed that he (Archie) and the JLSC did not give any instructions to any judicial officer on how to proceed when the cases came up for hearing before them.

“It is unfortunate that you have construed the media release (which was regrettably not worded as it should have been) in the way that you have.

“The purpose of the meeting was simply to obtain the views of the persons in attendance, not to make a decision as to how the matters would or should be dealt with by the relevant presiding magistrate,” Roach said in his correspondence sent in response to Ramlogan’s lawsuit.

The issue is just one of several arising out of the debacle caused by Ayers-Caesar appointment as a High Court Judge in April. Shortly after it was announced, several of the accused men whose matters were left unfinished by her staged a minor riot at the Port-of-Spain Magistrate’s Court after learning that there may be a possibility that their case had to be restarted.

Busby-Earle-Caddle adjourned the cases several times before she announced her decision on June 1. After the announcement, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard, SC, asked for time to consider the individual cases and make submission on how they should proceed. Gaspard is yet to announce his position to Busby-Earle-Caddle, who has already set dates for the restart of the cases, has promised that they would be determined expeditiously.