– Finance Minister
Minister of Finance Dr. Ashni Singh has confirmed that the promised payouts to CLICO Guyana policyholders continued yesterday, and that the process so far is going “extremely smoothly.”
Dr. Singh said too that the policyholders have exercised the same patience demonstrated from the beginning of the debacle and continue to do so, even when faced with a situation of further delay to facilitate queries.
The Minister explained that policyholders were sent letters assigning them days to visit the office at which point the processing of claims and the execution of payments would be carried out. Dr. Singh noted that policyholders have been turning out in “significant” numbers and there has been positive feedback of the process.
A visit yesterday by a team from the Government Information Agency attested to this. All of the policyholders exiting the Camp Street offices of CLICO Guyana were happy and particularly impressed with the way in which their business was conducted and concluded. One policyholder indicated that it took her ten minutes for her transaction to be processed and for her to receive payment.
However Dr. Singh did point to one fly in the ointment. He said there was an incident where two persons visited the company and attempted to disrupt the process. They were found not to be policyholders and escorted from the premises, leaving legitimate policyholders to question why the attempt to disrupt, even as the process continued uninterrupted.
The CLICO payout is a direct result of interventions by Government designed to ensure Guyanese are repaid monies owed to them when the company went bankrupt more than a year ago.
About two weeks ago, President Jagdeo rolled out a rescue plan that guarantees refunds to all those who were affected by CLICO’s financial debacle, after acting Chief Justice Ian Chang ruled in favour of the Government to wind up the company’s operations here.
Then the President had explained that policyholders with investments in the company less than $30M as of February 2009 will be repaid in full.
Government made $3.6B available to finance the payout which President Jagdeo had assured will be executed within weeks. Almost a week later, the Finance Minister, explaining the next steps, indicated that policyholders should soon begin receiving invitations by way of letter to the company.
The process of processing and payout of policyholders began Monday and will continue until all refunds guaranteed by President Jagdeo are disbursed. (GINA)