THIS article will probably make a number of people angry. But that is not my intention. Nor is it my intention to engage in a witch hunt against anyone.

 

The fact is, there are two issues which should be of grave concern to the people of this nation and which, accordingly, deserve responsible public debate.

 

One issue involves the Government on the one hand, a “group of international investors”, and a local attorney; and the other involves the Government and a troubled insurance company. And, who knows, there may be some connectivity between the two.

 

In addition, these issues may provide cause for serious reflection by the people of this nation with regard, inter alia, to choices in the upcoming general elections.

 

Yet sadly, the media seems to be less than vigorous and vigilant in investigating, and reporting on, them to the general public. (The Prime Minister was keen to make this same point to Toni Frederick of WINN FM in his last press conference when discussing the Lindsey Grant U.S. Citizenship Renunciation. However, from all the accounts, it seems that in relation to the first issue referred to in Paragraph 3 above, he and his surrogates are not as keen).

 

I might be persuaded to believe that in smaller nations and the markets there is a greater likelihood of apprehension in the media to tenaciously investigate issues involving powerful people and institutions. Yes, Government will get ‘stick’, but the media still often stops short of executing its mandate in the fullest and most independent and professional manner, and this seems to be true even with privately owned media entities which may be hostile to the Government. And in the case of reporting on powerful people and organizations in the private sector, it seems to be worse.

 

This apprehension relates to the fact that media houses (excluding the political party organs) are themselves business enterprises and they would rather use half-throttle, or in some cases, no throttle at all, than lose advertising revenue or other favour. Indeed, in some cases, their ownership will simply not allow them to be free in the pursuit of truth.

 

And this poses a great threat to democracy in a small nation. A threat, which in my opinion, is doubled if and whenever a political party which is favoured by the media and other private sector moguls takes power.

 

The first issue flows from documents which were allegedly leaked from the Cabinet relating to an application by “a group of international investors”, led by a gentleman who operates a hotel in St. Kitts, to purchase about 34 acres of land, in addition to 89 acres which had “already been approved for sale to my business” to do a development which would help them recover their money lost to a local attorney.

 

Questions have been raised by the media and some answers given by the Government. But there is a strong view that the questions have been badly structured and that they have been finessed by those called upon to answer them.

 

Here are some questions which need to be answered:

 

1.      Did the CEO of a local hotel write a letter to the Prime Minister dated 20th June 2009?

 

2.      Was the letter written on behalf of a group? Can that group be identified? And has due diligence been done on its members, including the writer himself? What are their track records? Are there any court judgments against any member of the group that might be of interest to local and other decision makers? Are there any concerns with regard to possible embarrassment to St. Kitts & Nevis by virtue of the proposal and/or a person or persons behind it? Could that be the real problem?

 

3.      With regard to the writer himself, what is his track record? When were the 89 acres” approved for sale” to the writer, and what has he done with all of that land? What is his status with regard to the payment of utility bills, Social Security, etc. to the Government and to trade creditors on the island? How has the hotel performed since his intervention? How many lots of land has he sold? How many houses has he built? What are they made of? How are they made? Are they in compliance with our local building requirements? What are the sizes of the lots and the market standards of the houses? How much has he been selling lots and houses for? Has he produced letters or other forms of testimonials from purchasers?
I don’t know and I’m not accusing. I am only asking.

 

4.      Did the letter state that the group had lost a significant amount of money to a local lawyer and that “it appears that the total exposure (to the group) is US$9 million”? If so, is the word “appears” not too vague? Couldn’t the writer have been more specific by detailing the alleged losses and by showing the Prime Minister the names of all of the members of the group and their respective losses (his own included)?

 

5.      Is the claim in the said letter that the matter “is on the verge of becoming an international scandal” accurate? And if so would this be because of the lawyer, and possibly the Government for not having any “safeguards to ensure and protect funds held in trust by St. Kitts attorneys”? Or might the threat of an international scandal be also attributable to any member or members of the “group of international investors”? I am simply and respectfully asking, not judging.

 

6.      Given the questions above, and others, and the answers and analysis that would flow from them, can the proposal for which the writer seeks Government’s “swift acceptance” work? Would Government be prudent in giving its blessings to it in fact or in concept, or in the context in which it is made?

 

Now, to the Attorney.

 

1.      Is the claim of the letter writer true? If not, then the attorney is being badly, perhaps irretrievably, scarred; I can only hope that the claim is not true.

 

2.      If the claim is true (and it is widely known that there are other persons who have made claims against the attorney in the court), then where is the money? Can it be accounted for?

 

3.      The attorney is said to be enjoying good personal friendships with three of the most influential persons in the present Labour Government, two of such friendships going back to the 1980’s when he and two of the three were high-level PAM activists seeking (one not so blatantly because of his position at the time) to keep their Party safe and secure (was it in 1989 that PAM’s slogan was ‘ Safe and Secure With PAM’?) in office in the 1980’s and especially during and after the political crisis of 1993, and the third friendship of more recent vintage. Could some of that money have found its way into the Labour Party’s war chest? I hope not. I am not saying or suggesting that it has. Just asking. And could personal relationships have played a role in causing what may appear to some to be an outrageous proposal to reach the Cabinet? I hope not. Just asking.

 

4.      There are persons in the community who are saying that for years the attorney has been offering certificates of deposit to persons wishing to invest, providing, like the said troubled insurance company was doing, interest at a higher rate than the commercial bank rates. If this is true, then how has the attorney been able to do that? And is it possible that some of the money invested with him might have found itself in the hands of the said troubled insurance company? Can the General Manager or the Judicial Manager of that company share this information?

 

5.      The attorney was himself the Deputy Leader of the People’s Action Movement (PAM), and indeed aspired to become its Leader. For five years (1995-2000) he represented PAM in Parliament as a nominated member. Then he contested the 2000 general elections as the PAM candidate for St. Christopher 1, East Basseterre. Has any of that money gone into PAM’s war chest? I hope not.

 

6.      How long has he been involved in this activity? He operated in a brief partnership with myself over two decades ago, and I do not know if he was involved at that time. He also operated in partnership with the present Leader of the People’s Action Movement (PAM) from, I think, the early 1990’s until about four to five years ago. Was the PAM Leader aware of any such activity during the time that they were partners? And during the existence of their partnership, there was a very strong judgment by the court in Anguilla with regard to the estate of Dr. William V. Herbert ordering funds to be “disgorged”. Could or would that have been a red flag for anyone? Would the PAM Leader have had sufficient cause way back then to put himself on the alert and step away from the partnership earlier than he did? Indeed, was it he who stepped away, or was it his partner?

 

Let us turn to the Insurance CEO.

 

The troubled insurance company has had as its manager for many years a gentleman, who also for the last thirty years or more, has been a high-level official, and then Deputy Leader of PAM.

 

The Company has been offering interest rates to investors for years at a higher rate than has been available at the commercial banks. I expressed deep concern about this long ago and I was assured that it was all in order. My assurance was provided by one of the three dear friends of the attorney, and one of the two ‘PAM-activist cum Labour supporters’. I did not buy it. And not because of who provided it, but because it seemed to me not to be right. I felt that it endangered our banking system and our entire economy. (Bad enough an insurance company, worse yet an attorney engaging in an activity that requires appropriate licensing).

 

I am told that the insurance company finds itself holding $135 million for over 7,000 Kittitians and Nevisians. Whatever the numbers are, how much hope is there for our people getting back their money? That kind of money can do deep harm to our economy and create more debt, both private and public.

 

Government, like the other Governments of the region, and the Central Banks of the region, like their counterparts throughout the world, must take much of the blame for their regulatory looseness. However, and although we are all sinners, we cannot justify not doing better when we know that better can be done by simply saying that there is no law which orders us to do better.

 

The insurance company, like its parent company, must have known for some years that it was in trouble. I am told that financial statements for 2007 and perhaps before would have shown that. I am told that the bonuses paid to the parent company’s bigwigs in 2007 totalled hundreds of millions of dollars. But even beyond those statements, persons in authority in every office and every country where the company operates, including its CEO in St. Kitts must, or at least ought to, have known, if they were in any way worth their salt, that depositors’ money was in trouble and that thousands of families stood to lose their life savings. And none of them can duck their particular responsibility by saying that Governments failed to regulate.

 

The obligation is profoundly greater on a person who seeks public office, whose first love must be the people, not the company, and whose first loyalty must be to the people, not to the company.

 

The CEO was also on the Board of the company. Now some persons have said that he was only there from April to June of this year. To that I will ask: Why did he agree to join the Board, and why did he then choose to stand down, and two months later? Did anything happen with the company during those two months to reflect on his performance or credibility in any way? Was that a wise step on his part, especially given the circumstances? And if it was unwise, what does it say of his judgment?

 

It is important to note that the same gentleman had found his judgment to be very wanting by Sir Louis Blom-Cooper in his Commission of Inquiry Report to the Governor-General dated 3rd February 2000. Speaking on the issue regarding a fire that had taken place at the Democrat Printery and for which National Insurance, then with the same gentleman as its manager, had paid to the Democrat over $100,000.00 in compensation although the Democrat was not insured, and although, with suspicion of arson, the gentleman, as manager, had not sought reports from the police or the fire brigade, and Blom-Cooper stated: “His failure to seek a police report, in view of the suspicious circumstances of the fire, seems both inexplicable and reprehensible. Any insurance company, faced with a claim where arson is suspected, must, as a matter of course or simple expediency, ask immediately for a report from the police and the fire brigade.”

 

Blom-Cooper went on: “... (the gentleman) should have been on record as having drawn to the attention of the Board that Mr. (Roy) Jones (then Chairman of the Board and also a Minister of Government) could not be both a claimant on behalf of the Democrat and at the same time be the Chairman of the Board. (The gentleman) should have had a quiet word with his Chairman. If thereafter he had failed to produce a sensible response from his Chairman, he should have alerted the Board to the situation; after all he (the gentleman) was also the Secretary to the Board.” Clearly, when faced with a conflict of interest situation, every critical decision taken by the gentleman was wrong.

 

Blom-Cooper concluded by referring to what he called the gentleman’s “mismanagement” when he said: “...without doubt, the omission of the National Caribbean Insurance Company to have this claim (from the Democrat, the mouthpiece of the then governing Party which also controlled National Insurance, so remember the politics of it) above all other claims of this nature, referred to the loss adjustor was a failure of management...”

 

It is troubling that an issue such as the first above-mentioned is not being put more under the media microscope for intelligent, analytical and mature debate and reflection, so that the general public might get more closely into the minds and thinking of the political incumbents, and in the process be better able to examine their judgment and worthiness. And it is also a, pity if my assessment is correct, that the media would be afraid to do its work.

 

It is also troubling when a former and a present Deputy Leader of a major political party in our nation would find themselves, albeit perhaps not entirely in the same way, embroiled in situations (which may even have some connection) such as these noted above. I am not reading or hearing interviews with annuity and policy holders as to what they are being told, what they think, and who they are holding responsible for the probable loss of their hard-earned money which they handed over to the troubled insurance company as a nest egg for their future, and as to the reliability of the policies which they hold. All thinking citizens need to reflect soberly on the implications for that particular party and its leaders, and on its worthiness to lead this nation.