BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, November 4th 2009 (PAM Secretariat) - The current global financial crisis has created significant and negative effects on a number of sectors within the Federation. This is according to Leader of the People's Action Movement (PAM) Lindsay Grant in an interview with the media recently.
Grant said that the current situation has created damaging effects on public and private investment flows within the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis. He has however predicted that when the information is finally forthcoming, the contagion effects of the global crisis on the Federation’s financial sector would be the most devastating. He told the press that he has made such prediction based on the fact that the contagion effects on the financial sector have already spilled over to the non-financial sectors of the real economy.
As we have seen in various sections of the media, the meltdown of the CL Financial and Stanford Financial Groups has had serious contagion effects on all within the Federation of St Kitts and Nevis.
However, looking at other countries we have seen that various Caribbean governments have sought means and ways in effectively addressing the various challenges that the crisis has posed to them. “For instance, in Barbados, the government has agreed to provide stand-by credit if needed for the local CLICO affiliates and is also helping to find buyers for CLICO’s insurance policies,” Grant noted.
Meanwhile, in Belize the CLICO affiliate is under “judicial management”. The same is also true for Guyana where CLICO (Guyana) has a subsidiary operation in Suriname. In the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), CLICO affiliates and in particular the British American Insurance Co. have had serious contagion effects.
Grant said that it was only after several weeks of pressuring that this government sought to appoint a judicial manager for British American Insurance Company. The court appointed Ms. Lisa Taylor of the firm KPMG as the Registrar of Insurance having exercised the power of intervention under section 57(1) of the Insurance Act No. 8 of 2009.
"In light of all these mistakes and delays that the Douglas administration should be held responsible, we have to seriously examine how the government has responded to this meltdown given its dramatic impacts. In particular, we are seeing where many are of the firm belief that too little has been done and what the government is now attempting to do is certainly too late," Grant said.
