Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh, prior to the motion in the House, said that a new Insurance Act was passed in 1998 which repealed previous insurance legislation that dated back to 1970 and had been implemented very sparsely.

He added that in October 2002 “the present Commissioner of Insurance was recruited, and the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance was established. The Insurance Act was brought into operation in December 2002 by Order issued by my immediate predecessor as Minister of Finance…

“In July 2007, on the advice of the Commissioner of Insurance, I issued Regulations under the Act to address the matters of company registration and company accounts, forms, and documents…

“The Commissioner of Insurance has also prepared annual reports and audited financial statements for her Office for each year over the period from 2003 to 2007 inclusive, all of which I have tabled in this House.”

Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform, Robert Corbin, who tabled the motion for debate, told the House that his party had long called for a ‘think tank’ to be established, so that suggestions could be forthcoming on how to best cushion against the impact of the Global Financial Crisis.

Instead, he said, the nation was regaled with the sentiment that the Government had everything under control.

He said that despite this position by the Government two large companies were laying off people, while this was the same with smaller companies.

The CLICO debacle is only adding to the problem, he said.

Corbin also pointed to the legislation to which the Minister referred, and which allowed for far-reaching oversight, pointing out that it was not used as efficiently as it could have been.

He pointed to the fact that, in The Bahamas and in Trinidad and Tobago, at the earliest sign of trouble the governments moved to the courts.

In Guyana’s case there was a slothful approach, Corbin said.

“Those responsible for regulation should have taken a clue… We were told that we were doing an excellent job of monitoring… There was a laissez faire approach to what was clearly an impending situation.”

There was also reference to the fact that, when the Trinidadian Government made a move on CL Financial, then Chief Executive Officer of CLICO (Guyana), Geeta Singh-Knight, issued a statement saying that Guyana was not exposed, given that it was independent.

This was later learnt to be untrue, given that it was discovered that CLICO (Guyana) was significantly exposed to The Bahamas.

He posited that it was clear that all was not well with CLICO (Guyana), therefore there should be an investigation into who benefited from the payouts that were effected when the company managed to sell bonds held in the Berbice Bridge, providing some amount of liquidity to the company prior to the takeover.

Corbin pointed out also that for well over a year the Commissioner of Insurance knew that the company had invested more than it should have had outside of Guyana, and this is in light of the statement by Singh-Knight that the company was not exposed.

Minister of Labour, Manzoor Nadir, said that there should be more punitive measures in place for persons at fault for allowing situations such as the present one to escalate to such a point, given that everything possible should have been done to protect policyholders.

Raphael Trotman, leader of the Alliance for Change, told the House that it was clear that the lessons that should have been leant from the financial crisis of the 1990s were clearly not learnt.

According to Trotman, the lesson was the fact that it has a contagion effect.

He supported the call for more punitive measures, adding that it should be applied to the regulators as well.

The AFC leader also raised the issue of the sale of the bonds held by CLICO (Guyana) in the Berbice Bridge, questioning whether it did not raise any alarms.

He too questioned how the guarantee would be upheld if the investment in The Bahamans is not recovered, questioning whether at some point in time the Government of Guyana will move to the Consolidated Funds.

Shadow Finance Minister Winston Murray, in his presentation on the debate, told the House that the credibility of the Government could be adversely affected if Government statements are disputed with facts.

He also questioned the assurances by the Government, given that the initial move by the Government was for the winding-up of the company, but the Chief Justice ordered Judicial Management, adding that the issue of winding-up was still before the court.

According to Murray, a pertinent question to be answered was how exactly the Government plans to effect the guarantee, adding that at this point in time the issue of liabilities was still unclear, pointing out also that the recouping of the investment in the Bahamas is also still unclear.