EDITOR, The Tribune.
The headline in Tribune Business today “Farcical: Govt picks up entire $40M BOB Issue” begs a number of serious questions in my view.
In a country that hosts a very significant Trust and Fiduciary industry, it is hard to imagine that “investment decisions” that have been taken, and continue to be taken by our Government members, as well as our National Insurance Board executives, would put any trustee of client assets behind bars for a very long time, and probably also elicit a significant fine, as well as an order to repay the funds lost due to their very bad judgment.
I am neither learned in the law, nor in the specialities of trusteeship, but I have been around Trust and Financial Service people for the better part of my life now, and I have great difficulty in believing that our Common or Statutory law would exempt Government members personally, or Government agency executives personally, when they make egregiously bad investment decisions such as have been made over the years, and are still being made today.
I have no doubt that The Tribune files have recorded a great many legal cases where a lawyer, entrusted with client’s money has suffered severe consequences when they have used it for matters that the client has not requested them to do. Does our AG not understand what is going on? Or would that present a problem as she sits in the very Cabinet that makes these investment decisions?
Does our Financial Services Regulator have the authority to give a pass to NIB for paying away the people’s money on a venture that it has already lost significant value from?
How can the Central Bank allow a regulated bank to do its business in this manner? Clearly the Central Bank is not independent of the Government of the day.
Where are the Bahamian people when their pension money is being squandered on hopeless investments in bankrupt institutions? The Members of this Government and the Executives of National Insurance will be long gone when people working very hard today are unable to collect any pension because the NIB has invested it in worthless politically focused ventures.
BRUCE G RAINE
Nassau,
November 17, 2016.
Comments
Sickened 7 years, 10 months ago
I think we need a class action lawsuit against the Trustees of NIB.
Well_mudda_take_sic 7 years, 10 months ago
Major crimes have been committed in the BoB debacle by the likes of Crooked Christie, Halkitis, Craigg, McWeeny, Demeritte, Rolle and others, not to mention the corrupt politically connected recipients of millions and millions of dollars of unsecured advances from BoB. The recipients of the unsecured advances from BoB had no ability or intention to repay the advances at the time they were made. Mangy Woman Slapper Miller and members of his family owe BoB in excess of $30 million of unsecured advances repayable on demand that have not been repaid. Crooked Christie has prevented BoB from demanding the repayment of these advances so that assets of value held by the likes of Miller and his family members can be seized and sold at auction to help defray the losses being filled in by amounts taken from our National Insurance Fund and VAT dollars.
Well_mudda_take_sic 7 years, 10 months ago
The references below to Sean McWeeney and his brother Paul McWeeney are all we need to know about the McWeeney family. Articles published in The Punch in December 2013 informed the Bahamian public that Bank of The Bahamas (BoB) had made the following loans and advances connected to political friends and cronies of Perry Christie:
• $28 million to Leslie Miller and/or entities owned by him and/or members of his immediate family. • $3.5 million to Obie Wilchcombe & Pleasant Bridgewater re. Universal Distributors Bahamas Ltd., a company apparently now defunct for all intents and purposes. • $8 million to another senior PLP cabinet minister, rumoured to be pudgy with short stubby grubby dirty sticky fingers. • $6.3 million to PLP business woman Patricia Mortimer who purportedly is a best friend and business partner of Lady Poodling and the owner of several shops at Nassau International Airport. • $2.3 million re. GEMS Radio Station which at the time was owned by Debbie Bartlett and Cyprianna McWeeney, the latter being the wife of PLP lawyer Sean McWeeney who is the brother of Paul McWeeney. • $4.5 million to enterprises owned/controlled by Edward Penn. • $4.6 million to Phil Lightbourne re. Phil's Food Services (Phil Lightbourne was the front man and spokesman for Ben Frisch who owned Bahamas Food Services up until the PM allowed the Frisch Family to sell it to Sysco Foods (a large U.S. public company) in April 2013.
Keep in mind that BoB is majority owned and controlled by the Bahamas government; accordingly its overall affairs fall directly within the portfolio of Christie as both PM and Minister of Finance. Most, if not all, of the loans and advances mentioned above had to be fully provided for by BoB, and likely have since been written off by BoB at great cost to hard working honest Bahamian taxpayers. Small wonder that, notwithstanding the mega millions in taxpayers’ funds (including our National Insurance funds) required to bail out BoB, Perry Christie was only too quick to come to the defense of Paul McWeeney (brother of Sean McWeeney) for having so handsomely rewarded the PM's political friends and business cronies! And let's not forget that Crooked Christie arranged for Paul McWeeney to receive a $750,000 termination bonus from BoB when the public's loud voice forced Crooked Christie to fire him from his cushy managing director job at BoB. Unbelieveably, Crooked Christie has granted crooked Paul another cushy job elsewhere in government. Crooked Christie, his side kick Paul and many others responsible instigating, enabling or wrongfully benefitting from BoB's corrupt lending practices have undoubtedly committed serious financial crimes for which they should be made to "do the time"!
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