Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

First Na­tion­al Cred­it Union share­hold­ers are call­ing on Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai to help them re­trieve out­stand­ing monies from the cred­it union which was evict­ed from its Point Fortin of­fices yes­ter­day.

Dozens of share­hold­ers who ar­rived at the cred­it union in Techi­er Vil­lage, Point Fortin, yes­ter­day ex­pect­ing to col­lect monies in­stead they met a locked door and a sign which read: "Please be ad­vised that the pe­ri­od of the sus­pen­sion of shares has been ex­tend­ed to May 31, 2013." Collins Richards, who is owed $30,000, said he ap­plied for his mon­ey since 2008.

He said he was suf­fer­ing from pros­trate can­cer and need­ed the funds for fol­low-up med­ical treat­ment. "I did an op­er­a­tion and I need my mon­ey. I am wait­ing too long. The gov­ern­ment has to do some­thing about this," Richards said. As he peeped through the closed glass doors, Richards said he was dis­ap­point­ed that no one had the cour­tesy to ex­plain why share­hold­ers haven't re­ceived their mon­ey. Richards said he was sup­posed to col­lect a tranche of cash since last Oc­to­ber. "When I came in Oc­to­ber, I nev­er re­ceived a cent! They told me to come in Jan­u­ary. When I went in Jan­u­ary, they told me to come March 19.

That is to­day and I am here and no­body has come to tell me any­thing. I want my mon­ey now," an an­gry Richards shout­ed. A lone se­cu­ri­ty guard at the fa­cil­i­ty locked the doors and left while Richards vent­ed his frus­tra­tion. Leno­ra Roach, who ap­plied for $2,000 in shares, said she has giv­en up all hope of ever get­ting back her mon­ey. "I don't think I will ever get it.

This is not the way to treat peo­ple," Roach said. Ken­neth Mod­este and Kendrick Mc Gillvery al­so said they were dis­ap­point­ed. "This mat­ter is some­thing that the gov­ern­ment should look in­to. Just as they dealt with Cli­co and Hin­du Cred­it Union, they need to ad­dress the First Na­tion­al Cred­it Union," Mc Gillvery said. Pa­tri­cia Joseph, who ap­plied to bor­row $2,000 from her shares since last year, said she too was frus­trat­ed. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Point Fortin May­or Clyde Paul said he spoke to of­fi­cials of the cred­it union.

"The cred­it union is not closed. The land­lord evict­ed them from the build­ing and right now they have an old build­ing that they own close to the Town Hall which they are prepar­ing for re­lo­ca­tion," Paul said. He added that the Bor­ough will ren­der as­sis­tance to en­sure a smooth re­lo­ca­tion. Asked about the de­lays in the pay­ment of funds, Paul said this was be­ing arranged. The cred­it union's chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer May­on Mur­ray and Min­is­ter Howai could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day. Calls to their cell phones went unan­swered.

FLASH­BACK

In 2008, Ven­ture Cred­it Union Co­op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety Lim­it­ed in Cou­va levied on the Point Fortin cred­it union. Ven­ture's at­tor­ney Dave Per­sad said al­most $2.8 mil­lion was owed by First Na­tion­al Cred­it Union (FN­CU). At that time Mur­ray in­sist­ed that the com­pa­ny was on good foot­ing. Asked why cus­tomers were be­ing de­nied ac­cess to their funds, Mur­ray said un­der the Co­op­er­a­tive So­ci­eties Act, any mem­ber who ap­plied for shares had to wait up to six months for pay­ment. He said the cred­it union had more than 25,000 mem­bers. In 2010, the First Na­tion­al Cred­it Union (FN­CU) Co­op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety Ltd lost its bid to re­cov­er $9,588,411.96 plus in­ter­est from the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) and Doc's Home Ltd. Doc's Home Ltd was con­tract­ed by the HDC (then the Na­tion­al Hous­ing Au­thor­i­ty) in May 2003 to build sev­er­al hous­ing units and was suc­cess­ful in se­cur­ing a loan from the FN­CU, in Au­gust, 2003, al­though the com­pa­ny was not a mem­ber of the cred­it union.