The Tribune

BAHAMIANS were yesterday urged to show “more outrage” over financial crime and poor business practices, a prominent cleric arguing that these had become “entrenched in our culture”.

Bishop Simeon Hall, speaking as he and other CLICO (Bahamas) policyholders received their third 2017 payout, told Tribune Business that “passivity is not always a virtue” in responding to way companies treat their customers. Calling for tougher action against financial and other forms of ‘white collar’ crime, Bishop Hall said such offences were so prevalent in the Bahamas that it was “difficult to get a handle” on the problem.

He added that CLICO (Bahamas) collapse into court-supervised liquidation in February 2009 was one example of such “financial skulduggery”, and suggested that “somebody was asleep at the wheel” in allowing the insolvent insurer to move $73 million out of this nation without foreign exchange control approval.

Still, Bishop Hall praised the Minnis administration for yesterday coming through with a pre-Christmas gift in the form of a third payout this year to CLICO (Bahamas) former annuity and pension customers. Around 90 per cent of the insolvent insurer’s clients have received their payouts.

“In a meeting [of ex-clients] on Friday, one lady said she was going to get the Prime Minister a Santa Claus suit,” he told Tribune Business. “It’s come at the appropriate time. It lifts the burden of going through this over the last eight years. Thank God it’s come, people have some money for Christmas, and are a little better off financially as a result.”

Bishop Hall said he had personally recovered two-thirds of the annuity obligation owed to him when CLICO (Bahamas) collapsed, following yesterday’s maximum $5,000 payout to all claimants. Those with outstanding balances that have yet to be settled will be ‘made whole’ via installment payments over the next four years.

The cleric, though, expressed doubts that the Government had implemented sufficient measures to prevent another CLICO-type insolvency from occurring.

“As we commend the Government, we also want to call on them to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Bishop Hall added. “Elderly people who were dependent on CLICO have died and finished their life, and have not collected what was due to them.

“It should not happen again. I would hope the Government will put in place some strong policies to prevent that kind of skulduggery from taking place.

“I do not know all the ‘ins and outs’. I’m 70 now, and I’m tired of social activism. But when people are exploited and disadvantaged, I feel it is my call to get involved. No one should have to go through this again.”

CLICO (Bahamas) failure coincided with the collapse of its Trinidad-based parent, CL Financial, which had provided a $58 million guarantee to its local subsidiary to cover any balance sheet ‘holes’ caused by its speculative investments in Florida real estate projects.

Some $73 million was transferred from CLICO (Bahamas) to finance the Wellington Preserve development without the necessary exchange control approvals from the Central Bank of the Bahamas, which Bishop Hall suggested exposed local regulatory failings.

“The Government has a law that you can’t take more than $10,000 out of the country without declaring it, so how did $73 million get out of the country and nobody knew?” he queried.

“We need to apply the law straight across the board. I think somebody fell asleep at the wheel. For the poor, the lost and the left out, we should at least try and protect them.

“One of the primary tasks of any government is to protect its citizens not only from crime but financial wrongs that can be perpetrated by financial institutions they put their trust in,” Bishop Hall continued.

“Once people, rich or poor, put money in a government-regulated institution they should be protected.” CLICO (Bahamas) was regulated by the then-Registrar of Insurance, which was subsequently upgraded to an Insurance Commission as the Ingraham administration beefed up the financial services regulatory regime in response to the debacle.

Bishop Hall, meanwhile, called for more public “outrage” over financial crimes and poor business practices, suggesting Bahamians were too accepting of issues such as ever-increasing bank fees.

“We have to have more outrage,” he told Tribune Business. “I was in a bank today and had to wait an hour-and-a-half to be served. Public outrage needs to heighten so businesses know how much they’re in the wrong.

“They don’t do it in the US, they don’t do it in Canada, but they come here and we’re too passive. Passivity is not always a virtue.”

Bishop Hall added that the Government and its law enforcement agencies needed to do more to combat ‘white collar’ crime, and said: “It’s so entrenched in our Bahamian culture that it’s difficult to get any handle on it.

“In the US all the policyholders of CLICO would probably be rich by now because of this debacle, but here it takes eight to nine years to fix and that’s wrong.”