Lisa Gomes, a former director at Sandals Resorts, has been appointed the general manager of Clico.
Gomes held the position of director of Finance and Planning at Sandals Resorts from January 2011 to March this year.
According to her LinkedIn profile Gomes’ responsibilities included Acquisitions, Investment Banking, Government Negotiations and Property Management.
On December 1 she was appointed the Clico general manager.
Chairman of the Clico Policyholders Group (CPG) Peter Permell is questioning the timing of the appointment and why it was not made public.
“The CPG can therefore understand why concerns are now being raised in certain quarters as to the timing and/or need for such an appointment and whether there could be a conflict of interest either real or perceived,” Permell said.
Permell questioned the appointment particularly in light of the fact that:
(1) “No Man’s Land is part of the Golden Grove estate at Bon Accord Lagoon, Buccoo. The estate, including environmentally important wetlands, comprises between 429.8 and 517 acres of freehold land, are owned by Clico subsidiaries, Occidental Investments Ltd (OIL) and Oceanic Properties Ltd (OPL). It is an open secret that Sandals chairman, Butch Stewart has indicated a distinct preference for No Man’s Land as the site for the proposed Sandals in Tobago. “
(2) “Finance Minister Colm Imbert is reported (in the media) to have said “If and when an agreement is reached with Sandals for the construction of a resort at that location, the land will simply be acquired by the Government. This can be done in many ways. It can be sold to the Government and the proceeds of sale netted off against the amount owed by Clico to the Government, or it can simply be purchased.”
(3) “It is the CPG’s understanding that No Man’s Land is one of the assets being held in the Clico statutory fund to back policyholders’ liabilities and, if not, certainly qualifies to be easily placed therein. What this means is that when the traditional insurance portfolio which consists of Individual and Group Life insurance, pensions and annuities is ‘transferred for value’ (ie, sold) to another service provider (let’s say possibly a Guardian Holdings) this property can/could be transferred (sold) as part of the overall transaction without the knowledge of the policyholders/public and/or agreement of the company’s shareholders. Since it is our understanding that the one of the terms/conditions of the sale is that sufficient assets of an acceptable nature, which could include OIL and OPL shares, must be transferred from Clico to the purchaser and that there would be no cash sale of the assets but instead the portfolio liability would be discounted.”
(4) “Clico already has a highly-paid executive chairman in the person of Wendy Ho Sing, who replaced former managing director Carolyn John and is presently in charge of the insurer’s day-to-day operations, seemingly duplicating effort. Additionally, Clico is in the process of winding down its operations and has already sent home more than 95 per cent of its sales force and stopped writing new insurance business.”
The CPG is calling on Clico’s executive chairman Wendy Ho Sing, Central Bank Governor Dr Alvin Hilaire and/or Finance Minister Colm Imbert to please explain, Permell stated.
Attempts to contact Ho Sing for a comment were unsuccessful. Attempts to reach Imbert were also unsuccessful. Calls and message to his cellphone since Friday went unanswered.